People didn’t wait for the sun to rise. As the cessation of hostilities took effect at 4 a.m., celebratory gunfire erupted, and thousands of displaced people began returning en masse to their homes in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and to the South, the Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel. The journey back, after over two months of forced displacement, was defined by an overwhelming sense of joy — despite the heavy human and material sacrifices.

As residents returned with big smiles on their faces and victory signs held high, Dahieh was overtaken by a collective sense of relief. Since the start of the Israeli war on Lebanon, Israel has killed nearly 4,000 people, injured almost 16,000, and damaged or destroyed more than 99,000 housing units, causing an estimated $2.8 billion in damages. Israel’s escalated war on Lebanon — which began on September 23 with the deadliest single day since the civil war — caused 1.4 million people to flee to other areas of the country for safety and shelter, sparking a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale.

Throughout the day, joy filled the capital’s streets as the people of Dahieh defied Israel’s indiscriminate devastation by returning triumphantly to their neighborhoods. They walked across rubble-strewn streets and drove past unprecedented destruction to reach their homes and assess the damage left behind by Israel’s relentless aggression.

Dahieh, an area covering 15.4 square kilometers and home to around 700,000 residents across several densely populated neighbourhoods, was once again a primary target of Israel’s war against Lebanon’s Shi’a population. Researchers at the Beirut Urban Lab documented 279 strikes demolishing at least 361 buildings, an average of 4.5 strikes per day.

Despite the immense losses, the deep scars, and the understanding that the weeks and months to come will be spent grieving, this day nonetheless represents a pivotal moment in Lebanon's history. As residents hang flags and banners across the debris and destruction, paying homage to the resistance group and to the late Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, the scenes tell a story of resistance, defiance, and hope. Today, the spirit of the people remains unbroken, adamant, and ready to rebuild all that Israel has destroyed.

A banner hung across a damaged storefront echoes a sentiment of valiance felt by many Hezbollah supporters: In the name of God, we will certainly be victorious. Signed, Nasrallah. 

A poster hanging in Dahieh. It reads: “In the name of God, we will certainly be victorious.” Signed, Nasrallah. Dahieh, Lebanon. November 27, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

Journalist Layla Yammine started corresponding with National News Agency correspondent Ali Hussein Daoud on October 1. He is based in the South. 

We’re living in a ring of fire, caught on a blazing, inflamed front. We fear for the fate of our children, our wives, and the people we love from Israeli treachery, which massacres children, women, and the elderly indiscriminately and across the region. Are these children Hezbollah targets, as they continue to claim?

Their targets don’t include missile platforms and have nothing to do with the resistance [Hezbollah]. Their targets are women, children, and the elderly. As you saw yesterday [September 30] in al-Dawudiya, in the al-Zahrani area, Israel bombed a four-storey building that fell on its residents, resulting in the martyrdom of eight people from the Diab family. Two other missing people were removed from under the rubble by the end of the day.

This enemy is trying to sever ties between the regions and towns, like they did today [October 1] in Ebel el-Saqi, cutting the connection between Marjayoun and Hasbayya. The Civil Defense and the Lebanese army closed the crater left by the strike. When they finished, another airstrike targeted Ebel el-Saqi to keep the road cut off in an attempt to split Lebanese regions from one another.

They keep threatening and promising to occupy the South, but there’s a resistance that’s fully prepared and ready to repel any Israeli movement on the borders.

There’s comprehensive coordination across the arms of the resistance between the Amal Movement, Hezbollah, al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya, the [Syrian Social] Nationalist Party, the Arab Socialist Ba‘th Party, and the parties who are involved in the resistance project and the choice to resist.  

And we must praise the work of our journalists in Nabatieh; they are the first line of contact with the blazing southern front. We must also praise the Civil Defense and ambulance crews who rush to rescue the wounded, search for the martyrs, and move them to the hospitals. They should be thanked for the essential role they are playing. 

As for the state, it is negligent all the way to the top. They hold emergency committee meetings in Beirut and nothing reaches the South, especially Nabatieh, Sur, and the border villages struggling day after day and left to their inevitable fate. We hope for that fate to be crowned with victory over the Israeli enemy because it has demonstrated, since its establishment in 1948 on the land of Palestine, that it commits massacres against the innocent in Palestine. Gaza, al-Mawasi, and Khan Yunis are witnesses, as are Nabatieh, al-Marwaniyeh, al-Dawudiyeh, Yohmor al-Shaqif, and other Lebanese border towns witnessing this unparalleled Israeli criminality.

For the past 35 years, I’ve been working as a reporter for the National News Agency (NNA) and other media organizations like al-Liwa’, al-Sharq Radio, and Sawt al-Watan.

I prefer to stay in the area to remain close to the frontline as events unfold and so I can faithfully convey the news on the ground to the NNA.

There are eight apartments in this building, and everyone has left — except for me. 

On October 8, we contacted Ali to check up on  him after airstrikes intensified and the Israeli occupation forces repeatedly targeted Nabatieh. 

Layla, I am still in the South. The airstrikes are surrounding us, but one can’t pay $700, $800, or $1,000 to rent two rooms. I’d also have to pay for water, WiFi, and electricity. There’s no money, I’d rather die in my own home, it’s more honorable.

On October 13, we contacted Ali again after Israeli air raids hit Nabatieh’s oldest and biggest market. His one-word answers felt like a bucket of cold water.

The situation is devastating. 

We pressed him for more and he responded an hour and half later, saying: 

Layla, it’s not easy to find what we need – even bread is hard to come by. There are still some people around, but last night’s strike on the market made it even more difficult, as that’s where bread was distributed. 

At home we have mouneh like kishk, za’atar, and makdous. People are now eating things that are kept for the winter. What else are they supposed to  do? There’s no meat or chicken, everything is closed.

On October 16, the Israeli military conducted an airstrike on the Nabatieh municipality building, killing the mayor and 15 others who were working to secure aid for those remaining in the city. A few days later, after days of intense airstrikes on Nabatieh and surrounding villages, I sent Ali a message to check on him.

On October 21, he responded. He and his family had managed to safely escape Nabatieh. Ali went from telling me firmly, “I will never leave” to sharing, “we’re now displaced.” Surrounded by air raids, he could  no longer risk his life or his family’s safety.

This is what he told us about his displacement.

The journey of leaving a home filled with memories, joys, and sorrows is deeply painful, especially if it happens under forced displacement — as is the case here.

On October 15, I left my house in Kfarjoz, Nabatieh, and headed for Saida. The drive there [29 kilometers] took barely 10 minutes, as I was holding my breath, terrified by the roar of jets soaring overhead and scared that they might target me as they had other innocent civilians.

We searched for a house in Saida and have found shelter in one for the last four or five days, but true stability is elusive. Stability is in the roots, not the branches. The root is home — the place that holds your dreams, ambitions, and all of the thoughts you’ve carried since childhood.

The situation in Saida is also very troubling because we're still in the South; we are still in the eye of the storm. Fear continues to haunt us since we haven’t left the South for Beirut. And though Beirut is safer than Saida, rent is very high. That’s why some people from Nabatieh would rather stay and risk their lives than leave their homes. They can't even afford a loaf of bread. They would rather stay in their homes in the city, despite the painful and devastating waves of displacement. 

For me, this is the first time I’ve ever been forcibly displaced from my house. During the wars of 2006, 1996, and 1993, I stayed inside the governmental palace in Nabatieh, and I slept there alongside the Lebanese army and state security, sharing meals with them, all while working at the National News Agency’s bureau and serving as a correspondent for Radio al-Sharq and Al Liwaa newspaper.

Today, work in media institutions has declined for reasons you're well aware of. Media organizations no longer provide stability for correspondents and editors; instead, they are laying them off because of the financial and economic collapse that Lebanon — and all of us — are enduring. 

Pain grips my heart; forced displacement from one's home is very hard and dangerous. A person can never find comfort except in their home, where they spent more than 30 years: sleeping, eating, seeing familiar sights, and sharing moments with loved ones and friends. Now, suddenly, we're cast aside, left with only a temporary roof over our head. 

All I hope is for the Israeli aggression to slow down, and for it to end, for them to respond to Berri and Mikati’s national initiative, and for us to return to our homes as soon as possible. 

May we return triumphant because, for now, we are far from victorious. We have lost so much, and we are paying with our flesh, spending everything we have just to buy food. No one is taking care of us, not the NGOs, not the Lebanese state, nor any relevant institutions or ministries… All of them have abandoned the displaced, leaving us to wrestle with fate alone, figuring things out one day at a time. As the old saying goes, “Cut your coat according to your cloth.”

On October 22, I woke up to a new voice message from Ali. Before opening it, I noticed he had also sent a photo of an airstrike, accompanied by a headline that read: “Total blackout across all areas after Kfarjoz airstrike.” I recalled that Ali and his family had been in their Kfarjoz home just a few days earlier.

This is what he shared with me that day:

Hello Layla, how are you? See? We barely made it out of Kfarjoz. Two strikes destroyed two buildings next to ours; the shockwaves hit our building. There’s glass and stones everywhere... If we were still there, we would have been dead.
 

We’ll be updating this page with Ali’s latest.

On Monday morning, dozens of Sudanese women — some of whom are recognized by the UNHCR as refugees — protested in front of the agency’s headquarters in Jnah, Beirut, demanding safe evacuation to an intermediary or host country.

Nearly 100 people from Sudan, Ethiopia, and Cameroon protested outside of the UN ESCWA headquarters in downtown Beirut just over two weeks prior, on October 18, with similar demands: to be recognized as refugees and to be granted safe passage to a third country.

“We ask the UN and the international community to see us, consider us, and evacuate us from Lebanon, even if only temporarily,” Kolshi Angilma, 21-year-old co-organizer of Monday’s protest, told The Public Source. “In the current context of war, it’s well-known that if there are attacks on the places we live, we have nowhere else to go.”

Angilma said shelters, including schools across the country that opened their doors to the displaced, have been turning her and other Sudanese migrants away.

Zamzam Adam Abdallah Yaacoub, 24, who participated in the UNHCR protest on Monday, echoed Angilma’s concerns: “We were forcibly displaced from the South and came here, and we have nowhere to stay. We have nothing. We don’t have shelter.”

Yaacoub said Sudanese migrants were shocked to find themselves in this situation — homes demolished, forcibly displaced, and left with no alternative. “Our homes were destroyed before our eyes. We have been made houseless over and over again. We have no idea what we’re going to do.”

Some Sudanese migrants, like 30-year-old Sayda al-Mahdi, sought refuge in Beirut, hoping the UNHCR would come to their aid — but so far, to no avail, al-Mahdi says. “We have children. We left with only the clothes on our backs. We found no shelter, no home, no water, not even a mattress,” she told The Public Source. “I have three children, and they’re sick and terrified of the situation. There’s nowhere safe for them. I want the UNHCR to find solutions for us as soon as possible, and to help us and take our cases to any country.”

The UNHCR defines asylum seekers as people “seeking international protection. Their request for refugee status, or complementary protection status, has yet to be processed, or they may not yet have requested asylum but they intend to do so. War, persecution and human rights violations force people to flee their homes.”

The UNHCR also notes that all refugees were once asylum seekers, and clarifies that not all asylum seekers will attain refugee status. Several individuals at the protest are, in fact, officially recognized as refugees by the UNHCR, and have the paperwork to prove it.

Some protestors expressed disappointment over what they perceived as a lack of initiative from UN agencies and NGOs.

“All we get from them are false promises: ‘We’ll call you back. We’ll get back to you. We’ll see what we can do.’ But in reality, on the ground, we haven’t seen anything,” 31-year-old Khalida al-Tayyib told us. “If the war in Lebanon ends today, or right now, where will the Sudanese go? Sudan is currently also war-torn. So where are we going to go?”

“We are here today — and more people are on their way — to reject the systematic practices against us, as African refugees in general and as Sudanese in particular.”

Sudanese protest organizers and participants met in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Jnah to demand recognition as asylum seekers and safe evacuation to a third country. Jnah, Lebanon. November 4, 2024. (Zeina Hariri/The Public Source)

Protestors carried signs that read, "Help us," "Save us, we are tired," "We are dying," and "Rescue us," as they chanted "Where, where is your humanity?" in front of the UNHCR headquarters on Monday. Jnah, Lebanon. November 4, 2024. (Zeina Hariri/The Public Source)

An open letter, penned by protest co-organizer Kolshi Angilma, describing the living conditions of the Sudanese community during this war, and asking to be evacuated. Jnah, Lebanon. November 4, 2024. (Zeina Hariri/The Public Source)

A child holds up a sign in Arabic that reads: "Save us, we are tired." Jnah, Lebanon. November 4, 2024. (Zeina Hariri/The Public Source)

A woman holds up her UNHCR Refugee Certificate — official UNHCR paperwork that verifies she is legally recognized as a refugee. Next to her, a protestor's sign reads: "We are dying." Jnah, Lebanon. November 4, 2024. (Zeina Hariri/The Public Source)

Tens of Sudanese women marched in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Jnah, Lebanon to demand evacuation to a safe country. Jnah, Lebanon. November 4, 2024. (Zeina Hariri/The Public Source)

An Israeli strike on a residential building nearby cracked, broke, or destroyed several tombstones in the Bachoura Cemetery. Beirut, Lebanon. October 8, 2024. (Ruwan Teodros/The Public Source)

A white flag stained with blood hangs on the first floor of a residential building in Bachoura, where Israel struck in the early hours of Thursday, October 3, 2024. The apartment, charred and eviscerated of its walls and furniture, belonged to the Islamic Health Organization’s Civil Defense crew. Nine staff members were killed, including two medics.

For many families, news of the attack was quickly followed by photos of damaged gravestones in Bachoura Cemetery — known colloquially as Jabannat al-Bachoura — where their loved ones are buried. The cemetery is located across the street from the targeted building.

Traces of Lebanon’s modernity, from centuries of Ottoman rule to the brief French Mandate, are mirrored in the mixed architectural landscape of the Bachoura neighborhood. Its densely-populated, winding streets are a stone’s throw away from the Grand Serail and the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) headquarters in downtown Beirut. As Beirut grew into an eminent Ottoman trade city on the Mediterranean coast in the late nineteenth century, Bachoura was enlivened by new, flourishing businesses that benefited from its proximity to Beirut’s port and souks, according to Zeead Yaghi, a lecturer at the American University of Beirut’s History Department.

Crowded rows of marble tombstones pave the Bachoura Cemetery with familial losses and remnants of national history. Epitaphs and Qur’anic verses etched into the marble, along with the names of the deceased and the years they were laid to rest, go as far back as the nineteenth century. An Ottoman-era mausoleum houses the remains of Ahmed Hamdi Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Syria, who was briefly the Empire’s grand vizier, second-in-command after the Sultan. And in 1892, Sheikh Abdul Rahman el-Hout, Beirut’s Grand Mufti from 1905 to 1909, walled the cemetery, where he too would be buried, to protect its sanctity from the growing foot traffic, Yaghi says.

“The cemetery was also 100 meters [away] from the Green Line that once split Beirut into East and West,” Yaghi tells The Public Source. “It must have been a dangerous place, within range of snipers and gunfire. But it was still functional. Cemeteries are sacred; we don’t mess around with that. Israelis are different.”

Israel’s attack did not spare Bachoura Cemetery. It carried over piles of rubble, soil, and steel that crushed the olives and bougainvillea bracts that had fallen from the trees hanging over the cemetery’s southwest corner, where several tombstones were cracked, knocked over, broken, or destroyed in the strike. A film of glass shattered over one tombstone, and the remains of an air-conditioning compressor scattered over another.

The hollowed apartment can be seen wherever one mourns their loved ones, transforming an otherwise tranquil garden into a merciless reminder that Israel will not allow even the dead to rest in peace.

“We buried my maternal grandfather in Bachoura two months ago. I frantically forwarded the photos [of the cemetery] to the family WhatsApp group,” Omar Baadrani, a jeweler in Beirut, tells The Public Source. “My mom was barely able to type; she was in deep shock. My heart aches for her.”

Hiam Hattab, Ruwan Teodros' grandmother, commemorates her family members buried in Bachoura Cemetery. Beirut, Lebanon. October 8, 2024. (Ruwan Teodros/The Public Source)

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has deliberately targeted 19 of 60 cemeteries, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Religious Affairs. With nowhere to bury their dead, Palestinians are often forced to collect body parts or unrecognizable remains in plastic bags. If they can recover their loved ones’ bodies, they wrap them in white shrouds and lay them to rest in parking lots, courtyards, or on the side of a road — anywhere not yet targeted by Israel.

Parallels are emerging between Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its war on Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to turn Beirut into Gaza. The Israeli military appears to be employing the Gaza Doctrine in Lebanon, indiscriminately targeting and displacing civilians to “eliminate” so-called “threats” to Israel’s national security. Unlike Israel’s 2006 Dahieh Doctrine, a military strategy premised on destroying civilian infrastructure to get Hezbollah to yield, the aims of the Gaza Doctrine are embedded in genocidal tactics and ethnic cleansing.

"The Qana Massacre was my first time realizing who we are, where we are, and what we’re dealing with. I was six." - Lara A., visual artist based in New York

Over the past month, Israel has relentlessly bombarded towns and cities in the South, Bekaa, and Beirut’s southern suburbs, forcing over 1.2 million civilians to leave their homes, and systematically targeting health centers, medical workers, first responders, and journalists. Through these sustained attacks, Israel seeks to render these areas uninhabitable.

“The way I see it, Lebanon’s and Palestine’s fates are interconnected and always have been,” Lara A., a visual artist living in New York, tells The Public Source. “My grandfather, who was buried in Bachoura, passed away around the same time as the Qana Massacre [in 1996]. I connect his death to that massacre; it was around then that I discovered what Israel is. It was my first time realizing who we are, where we are, and what we’re dealing with. I was six.”

Although Israel’s strike did not directly target the Bachoura cemetery, its destruction likely violates the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which Israel has been a signatory since 1954. Cemeteries are places of remembrance, where the dead embody a community’s symbolic and historical continuity. While cemeteries immortalize the past, they also provide the living with rites and rituals that tether them to the land. In Lebanon, families often share the same plot of land for generations; members of the same family are often buried on top of one another, creating a simultaneously personal and communal experience. These sacred spaces allow the bereaved to connect with their ancestors, and preserve a sense of national memory, embodying versions of the country’s past that have been maintained, neglected, or erased.

“Cultural destruction during genocidal campaigns is a dimension of genocide itself,” writes Noa Krikler,  a PhD student at the London School of Economics. Her research explores the cemetery as the site of frictional interactions over nationhood in the Balkans. “[It] is evidence of the intent to completely erase the targeted group from existence. It focuses on a powerful, yet under-examined, form of cultural violence, namely the destruction of cemeteries and graveyards.”

For Tala el-Labban, a Lebanese citizen living in Michigan, the Bachoura Cemetery is where her entire paternal family is buried, including her father who passed away in 2018. Two years ago, she brought her husband, whom she met in the United States, to the cemetery and formally introduced him to her father. It has become an annual tradition for her family to spend their first day back in Beirut paying their respects at the cemetery, where Tala says the reality and magnitude of her loss were made tangible by watching other visitors commemorate and mourn their loved ones alongside her.

A cracked tombstone inside Bachoura Cemetery. Beirut, Lebanon. October 8, 2024. (Ruwan Teodros/The Public Source)

“The first thing I’m doing when I’m back [next] summer is seeing my father,” she tells The Public Source. “I don’t care what the conditions are. We don’t know if his grave is okay and I’m not going to make my uncle or cousin risk their lives to check right now. So, we’ll go ourselves and rebuild it if we need to.”

Families have been calling the cemetery’s caretaker, Hussein, nonstop to ask if their loved ones’ graves are intact, he told The Public Source. The central location of the strike has raised alarm bells over the scale and scope of Israel’s war on Lebanon, leaving many hesitant to travel outside of their neighborhoods or visit areas close to previous attack sites. But given the social and cultural significance of the grave, Hussein is hopeful that coordinated efforts for restoration will take shape in the coming weeks.

“My home is across the street from the building [they hit],” says Hussein. “It shook the ground, but the sound is worse when you’re hearing it from afar. I took my daughter and fled somewhere else, somewhere safer. But, really, what’s safe anymore?”

At least 67 people were killed and more than 120 others wounded in nearly three dozen Israeli strikes on the Bekaa valley on Monday, October 28, in what Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed called the “most violent day” in the Bekaa valley since the start of the war. “More than two-thirds” of the victims were women and children, according to Baalbek-Hermel Governor Bachir Khodr, and Israel gave no notice ahead of these strikes.

The bombing campaign continued into Tuesday and Wednesday, when the Israeli military issued a displacement notice for the entirety of Baalbek city, and parts of Duris and Iaat. Massive traffic congestion was reported as thousands of people fled the area. A new round of airstrikes on Baalbek began on Wednesday coinciding with Naim Qassem’s first speech as Hezbollah’s new secretary general.

A man walks through rubble after an Israeli strike on Duris, Baalbek-Hermel, on October 17, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

A man examines the damage from Israeli strikes in Duris, Baalbek-Hermel on October 17, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

A crater in Duris, Baalbek-Hermel, on October 17, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

The strike wave comes to a region that has been hosting large numbers of displaced people. Tens of thousands of displaced people are formally registered in the Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel governorates by the Disaster Risk Management Unit. Local army personnel have even been lenient in letting displaced people stay in two army facilities in the area, despite there being no official communiqué from the Army Command to allow the practice, according to Al-Akhbar newspaper. 

With strikes starting Monday morning and continuing throughout the day, deaths were recorded in at least 12 different villages in the valley, in both the Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel Governorates. Among the deceased were 16 people in Aalak, 11 in Ram, 10 in Hfeir, and six each in Baalbek and Boudai.

All 11 victims of the massacre in Ram came from the same family, the Noun family, the National News Agency reported. Four children from the family, and their mother, have been reported killed so far. Last month Israel killed another member of the Noun family from Ram, Nazir Yousef Noun, who was mourned as a fighter by Hezbollah.

The strikes in Baalbek, near the Lebanese army’s Gouraud Barracks, also damaged the Iaat Gate of the Baalbek Temple Complex, according to natural and cultural heritage NGO Green Southerners. Baalbek’s Roman ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, added in 1984 given their “outstanding universal value” to humanity.

From the beginning of the war on October 8, 2023, until two weeks ago Israel had launched almost 900 strikes on the Bekaa valley, according to Al-Akhbar. With the strikes this week, that number now approaches, or perhaps, even exceeds 1,000. As of October 18, 452 people had been killed across the Baalbak-Hermel and Bekaa governorates since the start of the war. This week’s attacks bring the death toll across the two governorates to over 500.

On October 4, 2024, Israel targeted the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon, in the East Bekaa, and Syria. The strike created a huge crater that completely cut off circulation, forcing people attempting to cross the border to walk. Over 520,000 people, a majority of them Syrian citizens, have crossed from Lebanon to Syria since September 23, 2024.

A young boy stands next to a crater at the Masnaa border crossing with Syria on October 17, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

People cross the Masnaa border crossing with Syria on October 17, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

Buses from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent wait to take people onwards into Syria at the Masnaa border crossing on October 17, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

A large crater left by an Israeli strike forces people to cross Masnaa border crossing on foot on October 17, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

Lebanese Internal Security Forces surround the Hamra Star building's entrance and prevent displaced residents from entering. Beirut, Lebanon. October 21, 2024. (Fatima Joumaa/The Public Source)

Lebanese security forces attempted to forcibly evict residents of the derelict Hamra Star Hotel on Monday, injuring several individuals and their supporters, before popular pressure forced authorities to grant the residents a 48-hour reprieve. With the deadline now passed, many residents still have nowhere to go. At the time of writing, around 100 residents remain in the building, unsure when police will return.

At dawn on September 28, following the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, people fled to the streets as Dahiyeh came under relentless bombardment. More than 250 individuals, comprising dozens of families, sought refuge in the Hamra Star Hotel with help from neighborhood residents.

For many of the families, this was not their first displacement. Some were initially forced to flee their southern border villages such as Majdal Zoun, Qabrikha, Shaqra, Kfar Kila, Houla, and Bint Jbeil to relatively safer areas in the South. When those areas also became too dangerous, they moved to Beirut’s southern suburbs. Other families had been displaced from Baalbeck to Dahieh, and then again to Hamra.

“We were sleeping in the car parked at Martyrs’ Square in downtown before we packed up and came here,” Hajjeh Amal from Qabrikha told The Public Source. Her daughter had called to tell her that she had secured a room for them in a recently opened building in Hamra.

The Hamra Star building had previously been sealed with red wax due to incidents involving prostitution and a murder, according to the Lebanese investigative journalist, Radwan Mortada. Residents said some of the owners initially assured them they could stay in the building until the war ended, but later had a change of heart. The residents had spent three weeks cleaning and fixing up the building.

Displaced residents and their supporters block Hamra Street in protest of the decision to evict them from Hamra Star. Beirut, Lebanon. October 21, 2024. (Fatima Joumaa/The Public Source)

The owners were able to quickly secure a court order to evacuate the building; they used political influence in the judiciary and Interior Ministry to get a speedy order, according to Mortada.

“We told [the owners] we are willing to sign an official document promising to leave once the crisis is over, in case there were concerns we’d claim ownership,” a displaced man from Houla, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Public Source. “They were understanding and sympathetic, but we don’t know what happened afterwards.”

The displaced families say they worked tirelessly to rehabilitate the previously unlivable space, spending days clearing out accumulated filth, dust, and trash. One of the displaced men volunteered to connect water to the rooms. “The poor guy spent hours setting up the plumbing, then connected the electricity while we spent our first nights using candles,” recalled Hajjeh Amal. “The sewage was clogged too; he worked with the other men to fix it so people could use the bathroom.”

On Saturday, October 19, security forces arrived and asked the families to leave quietly, claiming the state had secured a building between Sabra and al-Madina al-Riyadiya. Some of the Hamra Star residents went there to inspect the site and found that the three-storey building, located in an area that has become unsafe because of Israeli airstrikes, could only accommodate 150 people. Four to five families would have to share a hall, with only tarps separating them. The building’s glass facade made it unsuitable to protect the women’s privacy, leaving them fully exposed to the outside world.

A woman from Houla, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Public Source that security forces threatened the residents: “We’re trying to sympathize with you as much as we can, but you only have 48 hours to evacuate, or you will be met with a larger force on Monday, and you won’t be able to do anything.”

Two women, with the few belongings they managed to carry from their homes, sit outside the Hamra Star building after being threatened with eviction. Beirut, Lebanon. October 21, 2024. (Fatima Joumaa/The Public Source)

In line with their warning, on Monday, October 21, the Internal Security Forces (ISF), reinforced by riot control units and the Lebanese army, arrived at the Hamra Star Hotel with buses to relocate the families. The ISF blocked the road leading to the main Hamra Street, angering the residents, who felt they were being treated unjustly. In response, the residents blocked the other side of the street.

During the confrontation, riot police struck people indiscriminately, including women, the elderly, and a 12-year-old child. They forcibly evicted the families from their rooms, using pepper spray, leaving people in pain and distress. At least two women were badly injured and required stitches, while one man, according to his wife, suffered a seizure and needed immediate hospitalization.

“My husband was defending his honor and dignity; he was defending his people and country,” the man’s wife told The Public Source. “Many people have lost their homes and have nowhere to go. Where are we supposed to stay? We’re the ones who made this place livable; we fixed it up.”

Hours later, the men managed to re-enter the building by prying open one of the shops, and returned one by one until every room was filled again. By evening, the ISF extended the evacuation deadline by another 48 hours, following a decision by the Public Prosecutor.

“We all stood together. We refuse to leave this building unless it’s to return to our homes and villages,” said the woman from Houla as she peeled potatoes for lunch. “Where else do they want to take us to degrade us? Who can guarantee that in a week or 10 days they won’t tell us to leave again?”

Security forces prevent men from entering Hamra Star, while a number of women and children remain inside. Beirut, Lebanon. October 21, 2024. (Fatima Joumaa/The Public Source)

Some families returned to their homes in Hay el-Sellom, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, frequently targeted by Israel, choosing to risk their lives rather than face another humiliation. Around 100 individuals stayed in Hamra Star, determined to resist the eviction until better alternatives were provided. On Wednesday at noon, a security officer visited Hamra Star and informed those still there that they could stay until the state had secured another location. The officer took down the names of everyone who decided to stay, according to one activist we spoke to. By evening, however, the remaining families were suddenly told they had to evacuate the building by 8 p.m., with no alternatives secured.

Since the escalation of the Israeli war on Lebanon over a month ago, the government has been unable to adequately address the displacement crisis. Public Works, a research studio that advocates for the right to housing in Lebanon, urged authorities to make use of vacant buildings to provide decent housing for those now in need. In a statement published Monday, and co-signed by several other groups,  it also called on the government to update the national emergency plan.

Hajjeh Amal believes that “it’s not just about evicting displaced families from private properties; they want to put us in camps. They’ll gather us near al-Madina al-Riyadiya and tell the enemy, ‘Here they are, bomb them!’” Her sister-in-law, Hajjeh Zeinab, who is still mourning her martyred brother, intervened, saying: “We can endure anything, every difficult situation — but we refuse to be humiliated.”

On Sunday, close to a hundred people from Sudan, Ethiopia, and Cameroon gathered outside the downtown Beirut headquarters of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), chanting “where is your humanity?” and demanding the UN evacuate them from Lebanon to a safe third country as asylum seekers.

“We want to save our children and our families from the Israeli bombs and from the war in Lebanon,” said Abdelbaqi Othman Abdelbaqi, of the Khartoum International Centre for Human Rights, who was one of the organizers of the protest.

Many of Lebanon’s roughly 176,000 migrant workers have largely been left to fend for themselves, as virtually all formal shelters for displaced people refuse to allow them in. Many who want to leave lack the means to do so, or can’t return to their home countries that are also at war. With few options remaining, the protesters on Sunday turned to the United Nations to demand recognition as asylum seekers and evacuation to safe third countries.

“I’m from Tigray, and my country has been at war for four years,” said Enat Dawit, 41, a mother of three from the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia. “I cannot return to my country.”

Four years ago, militias, troops from Ethiopia’s central government, and armed forces from the neighboring country of Eritrea invaded Tigray, imposing a siege and a brutal military campaign that forced over two million people to flee. But today Dawit is looking to leave Lebanon. “My children cannot bear this war,” she said. “I want to leave this country.” 

One Sudanese protester, Adila, said she also cannot return home because of the ongoing civil war there, which started in April 2023, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions over the past year and a half. "There's war in our country and there's war here. We want to be evacuated, we need to be evacuated from this country. Immediately,” she said.

Ibrahim Mahmoud, one of the demonstrators, carried a homemade sign warning that refugee children are at risk of death. “I demand an immediate evacuation,” he said. 

Sanit Woldemariam Babo, a single mother from Ethiopia, said she was sleeping outside the UN’s ESCWA building with her two children until recently. "I would’ve managed had I been alone, but my children are sleeping on the street. They need to go to school. Sometimes they don’t eat."

Sanit and her children recently found shelter in a local church. But she still hasn’t been able to enroll them in school. 

“I want to look after my children’s future,” she said. “They’re not studying, and no one is helping me.” 

Some, like Enat, feel that the UN isn’t doing enough for them. “This United Nations, who do they stand with?” said Enat. “It must stand with us, our children. I've been sleeping on the ground outside of the UN for a month now, with the ants, in the sun, the rain on me and my children. Is that not wrong? Am I not a human being?”

Dalal Harb, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency in Lebanon, told The Public Source, “UNHCR is aware of the challenges faced by individuals in Lebanon and works to ensure that those in need of international protection receive the necessary support, in accordance with our mandate,” without responding to follow-up questions on the possibility of these protesters being recognized as refugees.

“We have died,” said Ibrahim. “We are living to die. Life and death are the same, there’s no difference. We demand evacuation, evacuation, evacuation.”

The Israeli military has killed 150 healthcare workers in Lebanon since October 8, 2023, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Wadi Jilo, Sur, Lebanon. October 9, 2024. (Image Source: X/Twitter)

Editor's Note: Israeli occupation forces are directly targeting healthcare workers, medical centers, and ambulances, placing people whose job it is to save lives at an increasing risk of losing their own. Israeli bombardment has caused 100 out of 207 healthcare facilities in Lebanon to close, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General said on X. Thirteen hospitals have fully or partially halted operations due to damage from airstrikes, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The ministry also reported that Israeli airstrikes have killed 150 healthcare professionals and injured 250 since October 8, 2023. The majority were killed after September 23, 2024. It is now life-threatening to practice medicine or provide healthcare services in Lebanon.

The Public Source spoke to Hussein, a healthcare worker in his 20s, who has decided to carry out his duties despite the risk, in the southern Lebanese city of Sur, on October 8, 2024; his name has been changed to protect his identity and his life.

Before the war, my friends and I used to go to these hangouts where we used to watch shows and movies and play video games together. But now we can’t do that anymore, especially since one of our friends lost his eyesight in the pager attacks. There’s no point in watching without him. Now, because of my friend’s injury, we stopped hanging out as a group. And now, because of the war, we haven’t even had the chance to see each other again.

Right now, I live at the hospital with only two sets of clothes: pants, one pair of pyjamas, and two t-shirts. Sur is mostly closed, and we can’t go anywhere. It’s hard to get food and supplies. But I managed to stock up in the beginning, before the war started. If I need something, I go to the el-Buss camp, because their shops are still open.

At work, I handle all the orders for medical supplies and data entry (morning shift, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.). My mornings are spent working. Then in the afternoon, in my free time, I go to the ER. I help out with whatever is needed, whether it’s gathering supplies or helping transport patients. Most of my time is occupied by these things. Afterward, I have coffee, talk to family and friends, and then sleep nearby. Sometimes I also read.

At times I have to go out to get something for the hospital. And it’s not safe, actually. One time they struck a building next to me. But I kept going. I wasn’t scared, to be honest. I know that whatever is going to happen is going to happen. There have been many situations where I was not safe. It’s limiting — you can’t move much, there’s a high risk of being bombed, and from time to time they strike next to us. But I’ve accepted this duty, and I have to fulfill it.

Israel targets medical aid workers for no reason. In their heads, they claim we’re transporting Hezbollah members. But they would target us even if we were just helping civilians. At the end of the day, we’re helping our society and those in need. People who work in this field, the rescue center workers, believe it’s their duty to help the injured. We’re certainly scared of Israel targeting us, but what can we do?

When the pager attacks happened, I received the news directly — I saw a bunch of them, because I was working in the ER. I was there. I saw many people I knew, family members and friends. But during this war, I often hear the news about my friends, my uncle, over the phone. Someone will say “we’re sorry your friend has died.” Sometimes I see my friends’ names posted on official Hezbollah social media accounts. Or I see pictures.

One day, while I was at work, they pulled me aside and told me my uncle had died. I said I needed a minute. But I knew I had to get back to work and couldn’t afford to break down.

After all the stress I’ve been through during this period — especially after the pager attacks, and knowing so many of the injured personally, and losing my uncle — I’ve come to terms with the fact that everyone I know could die. I’ve lost a lot of people since the beginning of this. I was ready for that. I admit that I still feel sad, a little bit. But I’ve accepted it. I understand that this is war, after all. It’s not a game.

What people don’t know is that these martyrs willingly go into dangerous areas. No one wants to die. But they understand their sacrifice is not in vain, that they are defending themselves. Even the injured — like those who received the pager alerts — accept what’s happening to them, because they know it’s for a higher purpose.

Staying in Sur during the war is just part of the job. I didn’t leave with my parents because I know they need my help at work. After seeing so many injuries, I couldn’t bring myself to leave everything behind and flee. I’m not someone who runs away. Of course, I care about my safety. But it’s nothing compared to what the injured or innocent civilians are going through.

There’s no secret to why I keep going: it’s simply the right thing to do — no more, no less. If everyone runs away, there’s nothing left here. My principles won’t allow me to leave everything behind. That’s what motivates me to keep going. I’m responsible for doing my duty. This is all I can do right now.

I’m confident that everything is going to be alright. Whether I make it or not. I’m pretty confident [here, he takes a deep breath] that this will end in a positive way: Hezbollah will win, and everything is going to be settled. 

Contact us if you’d like to make critical contributions to the coverage of Israel’s latest war on Lebanon — and all forms of resistance against it.

The courtroom of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in Leidschendam, Netherlands. March 25, 2010. (Photo Credit: Special Tribunal for Lebanon via Flickr)

Editor’s Note: The atrocities of this latest and most violent Israeli war on Lebanon is bringing us new heights of depravity and many dystopian firsts, made possible by international infrastructures of intelligence gathering and infiltration. As part of our efforts to document these infrastructures and linkages, we turn here to the extent to which the international mechanisms set up to investigate Prime Minister Rafik Hariri´s assassination made available extensive, sensitive information about Lebanon to Israeli intelligence. The piece, originally published in Al-Akhbar on October 4, 2024, is authored by Omar Nashabe, an expert in criminal justice and human rights who has long tracked and analyzed the activities of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, serving also as a consultant for its Defense Counsels (2012-18).

Under the pretext of seeking the “truth” behind the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005, Lebanese state institutions handed over extensive information about the country’s population, communications, transportation, and infrastructure to foreign investigators. 

In the aftermath of Hariri’s assassination, an international fact-finding mission, led by Irish police officer Peter FitzGerald, arrived in Beirut. 

Calls grew within Lebanon to grant the foreign investigator and his team unrestricted access and to disclose sensitive information, bypassing the agencies responsible for protecting the country from foreign intelligence intrusions, including the Army Intelligence Directorate, the State Security Directorate, and the General Directorate of General Security. 

FitzGerald even went so far as to demand the removal of the heads of these agencies, claiming they posed obstacles to the international investigation.

After one month of persistent efforts to extract sensitive information from Lebanese security services, FitzGerald submitted his report to the United Nations Security Council.

The Security Council then passed a resolution establishing the UN International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC), led by the controversial German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis. 

Mehlis swiftly acted on FitzGerald’s recommendations, leading to the arrests of General Security chief Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed; Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ali Hage; head of Army Intelligence Brig. Gen. Raymond Azar; as well as Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, head of the army’s presidential guard.

As the UNIIIC had no powers of arrest, the Lebanese judiciary took on this role. 

Following the detentions, several foreign security and intelligence operatives working with the UNIIIC launched extensive information-gathering activities, targeting in particular Beirut’s southern suburbs as well as select areas in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. The identities and affiliations of these operatives remained beyond the scrutiny of Lebanese authorities.

Initially, the international investigation focused on suspicions of Syrian officers’ involvement in Hariri’s assassination.

In 2008, the German newspaper Der Spiegel leaked that Daniel Bellemare, the Canadian head of the UNIIIC and later prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), suspected individuals linked to Hezbollah in Hariri’s assassination. 

Following this revelation, the focus of foreign investigators shifted openly, as they concentrated their efforts on gathering information about Hezbollah’s leadership and members.

STL’s requests for information from state institutions became de facto orders under the successive governments of Saad Hariri and Fouad Siniora. These requests were framed as necessary for achieving justice, with warnings that any refusal could lead to civil strife.

Notably, STL’s Office of the Prosecutor engaged individuals such as Rita Katz, a former officer in the Israeli army, whose name was cited as a reference in the court’s ruling. It also contracted CIA agent Robert Baer, who was previously assigned to assassinate [Hezbollah military] leader Imad Mughniyeh.

Israeli intelligence launched a large-scale operation after the 2006 war, using STL as a tool that the Lebanese authorities could not block, allowing them to collect information that could later be used to locate Hezbollah leaders in preparation for their assassination.

Between 2008 and 2012, STL’s Office of the Prosecutor was able to gather the following information:

• Comprehensive communication data, including information about communication networks and GPS. This encompassed mobile and landline communications, as well as analyses that allowed investigators to determine the locations and movements of those communicating by phone. STL also collected all text messages, photos, numbers, addresses, and audio and video recordings from mobile phones.

• Full records from civil registry offices, detailing the identities of every Lebanese citizen, their family connections, births, deaths, addresses, and photos.

• Detailed information about neighborhoods, residential buildings, infrastructure, real estate, and maps sourced from real estate departments.

• Economic data from official departments, including information about businesses, companies, and individuals with registered commercial, industrial, or service interests.

• Records on bank transactions, including movements of accounts, funds transferred or deposited, their sources, and the individuals conducting financial transactions.

• Comprehensive data from the Vehicle Registration Department, covering all vehicles in Lebanon — cars, motorcycles, trucks — with details about models, chassis numbers, countries of origin, and shipping parties.

• Complete records on passenger movements through airports, land crossings, and ports, including travel dates and reservations.

• Information on students at the Lebanese University and private universities, including their identities, specializations, activities, relationships, opinions, affiliations, and political orientations.

Foreign investigators also accessed surveillance cameras on roads, in shops, schools, and residential apartments, and helped set up a surveillance network by installing cameras in key locations such as roads, public squares, the airport road, and other specific sites. Some cameras were openly placed, while others were hidden, especially around Beirut’s southern suburbs.

This extensive amount of information reached Israeli intelligence through the United States’ International Cooperation to Combat Terrorism initiative. While Israeli intelligence could have gathered much of this information through its agents in Lebanon or its advanced technological capabilities, obtaining it through the STL offered distinct advantages for Israel, including:

• Accessing information legally, without interference from the Lebanese government or any political or partisan group.

• Gathering all data comprehensively, without exception — including communications data of diplomats, lawyers, journalists, and others.

• Avoiding the manipulation of information, such as being misled by double agents or falling into planned traps designed to provide false information.

• Verifying the accuracy and validity of previously gathered information, allowing for a thorough analysis to reach specific conclusions.

There is no doubt that the intelligence collected by European, American, and Australian officers in Lebanon from 2008 to 2012 further enhanced the capabilities of Israeli intelligence. It enabled the Israeli military to identify Hezbollah’s military, security, political, and administrative leaders, as well as their associates, families, networks, movements, addresses, and activities.

Displaced families who do not find space in a shelter and cannot afford to rent an apartment are left with no choice but to sleep on the streets. Corniche, Beirut. September 28, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

At the corner of Saifi Village, a high-end, pastel-colored residential area in downtown Beirut, is Charles Debbas Park. The small garden, with its stone benches and blue columns at its center, has transformed into a makeshift shelter for Syrian and migrant families from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Sudan. The newcomers are amongst the estimated 1.2 million civilians displaced from their homes by Israel’s ongoing aerial bombardment of Lebanon.

Bamboo mats and thick blankets are strewn across the grass. Children play tag with empty plastic bottles they collect throughout the day. Food boxes with Central World Kitchen and Ask Me About Christ labels contain the remnants of the vegetable noodles distributed at lunch. Although some families were able to secure foam mattresses, tents, or tarps, there is minimal furniture and equipment to protect most inhabitants from the scorching afternoon sun and the season’s sporadic rain.  

“The people are bringing us water and food, but there aren’t enough bedsheets, mattresses, or pillows for me and my family,” Ahmed, a Syrian man who has lived and worked in Lebanon since 2012, told The Public Source. “We fled Dahieh on Friday [September 27]. I have three children, two daughters and one son, and my wife. Most of the shelters we tried to visit are at full capacity.”

On Monday, September 23, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi ordered public schools and official institutions to provide shelter for the influx of displaced people. Meanwhile, rumors and unverified news reports about private establishments and leisure centers, like Forum de Beyrouth and Biel’s exhibition center, opening their doors for shelter circulate on social media, sending households back and forth in search of refuge. 

"Most of the shelters we tried to visit are at full capacity.” —Ahmed, Syrian man who has lived in Lebanon since 2012

“The news tells us these places are open. We quickly get on our [motorcycles] to secure a place for our families, but the guards tell us to leave when we arrive because the news is wrong. They’re not sheltering anybody,” says Hussein, who, along with other men, parked outside the gates of Forum de Beyrouth, waiting for an update about additional shelters. 

Families who do not manage to find space in a shelter and cannot afford to rent an apartment are left with no choice but to sleep on the streets. 

“When it rains, we take cover under the [Fouad Chehab] bridge,” says Batoul, a Syrian mother of two who fled her apartment in Dahieh last Wednesday [September 25] after the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli occupation forces issued displacement notices on X. “The only thing that the state offered was three buses headed towards Syria. Only two families got on.” 

On September 29, Syria’s Council of Ministers introduced a one-week waiver, which was extended again for another 10 days on October 5, on its requirement for each citizen, regardless of age, returning to their country to exchange $100 into Syrian pounds. It is unclear, however, if the changes are being enforced at the border. Without additional support from the Syrian embassy and the perpetually absent Lebanese state, displaced Syrians must rely on inconsistent donations and distributions from non-profit and grassroots organizations. 

“The only thing that the state offered was three buses headed towards Syria." —Batoul, Syrian mother of two

“Now, I don’t have a house here and I don’t have a house there [in al-Mazzeh, Damascus]. Both are destroyed,” says Haya, a young Syrian woman pregnant with her third child and sleeping with her family on the Corniche. She says she was sent a contact number for a shelter, but when she called, was told that they were not admitting Syrians and that she should return to her country. “Of course, I want to move back eventually, but not like this.”

Update: On Sunday, October 6, the neighborhood’s security guards forcibly evacuated Charles Debbas, displacing families again. Many relocated to a parking lot across the street, where some families were already sheltering in their cars. 

“They kicked us out at 10 last night. Residents complained about the garbage, the smell, and the sounds,” says Batoul, who temporarily relocated with her family meters away from the garden, under the Fouad Chehab bridge. “We don’t know where to go next.”

Tima is an Ethiopian migrant who runs a feminist anti-racist group that provides support to migrant and refugee mothers. Undated. (Photo Courtesy of Ali Alsheikh Khedr)

When the school where she works as a janitor was converted into a shelter for displaced people, Ababa suddenly found herself out of a job and a place to sleep. “It’s open for Lebanese, only,” she said, forcing her and her friend Hanna to sleep in a park in downtown Beirut since the massive Israeli bombardment in Haret Hreik September 27 which killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and a still unknown number of civilians. 

The two women, originally from Ethiopia, had been living in the neighborhood of Bir Hassan in Beirut’s southern suburbs before the attack. They say no one from the Lebanese government, the United Nations, or their own consulate has made an effort to check on them.

“We didn’t bring our stuff or anything,” Hanna said. “Yesterday, we tried to go back to get our things and they started bombing.”  They decided it was too dangerous and turned around halfway there. They have almost nothing on them — no money, no spare clothes, and nowhere to charge their phones or use the bathroom.

“We went to a church, we’re Christians. They closed it and told us to go to the consulate,” Hanna said, adding that no one from the consulate was answering their phone calls. They haven’t found a shelter that will take them in.

Nearby, in the same park, Nour Zahan and Rena, two women from Bangladesh, sat on the ground waiting for their circumstances to change. They, too, left Beirut’s southern suburbs on the day of the same series of air strikes, but no one at the Bangladeshi embassy has returned their calls. They’ve tried to find shelter from the rain and sun in the schools and other formal shelters that have taken in over 162,000 displaced people, but were told either that facilities are full or that “Bangladeshis are forbidden,” before being brusquely shooed away. The women say they would jump at the chance to evacuate, but cannot afford the airfare back home without the help of their governments.

Lebanon is home to 176,000 migrant workers, who are especially vulnerable amid the ongoing Israeli war. Many are semi-formally excluded from the government’s emergency plan and lack the family networks that many Lebanese are using to secure shelter amid displacement. The International Organization for Migration estimates 46 percent of the displaced are being hosted, rather than renting or staying in a collective shelter.

Michael Petro, a project director with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), helps run one of the few shelters that has taken in migrant workers. The 64 people currently residing at the Saint Joseph Church in Monot, which has long operated as a migrant worker community center, have access to a well-supplied, clean space. The site, however, is at capacity, and despite the heroic efforts of the shelter staff to find newcomers alternative shelters, they are unable to help everyone. 

It started on Tuesday, September 24, when a large group of Sudanese families, who had traveled overnight from Nabatieh by foot and motorcycle, arrived at the church. Up until then, the church had no plans to become a shelter. Petro’s team tried to find them a place to stay. “Our social workers called every shelter in the country, every single one,” he said, and only found one place willing to take non-Lebanese. They rented buses but, before the buses even left Monot, the shelter rescinded the offer. “So that’s how we became a shelter… Thank God we happened to have 100 mattresses in the basement of a nearby building.”

When they realized that they couldn’t take any more people, workers at the Saint Joseph Church sent a group of 70 women from Sierra Leone and Bangladesh by bus to a shelter they identified in Tripoli. While the shelter initially accepted the women, as promised, they were evicted the next morning by the Tripoli municipality and General Security. They are now back in Beirut, sleeping on the streets.

“We had the confirmation from the government that they would take them,” Petro said, “and then a different part of the government had them removed.”

Malika Jumaa, a Sudanese woman living in south Lebanon, is staying at Saint Joseph’s. She spent the first night of her displacement sleeping under the Cola bridge in Beirut, after making the arduous journey from the South. She then heard about the shelter from a WhatsApp group, and quickly made her way there. “Thank God, it’s better than being in other places,” she told The Public Source, adding that she is concerned for people still on the street. She doesn’t plan to return to Sudan, citing the ongoing war. Her parents disappeared in the violence there years ago, leaving her with no family to return to.

On Wednesday night, JRS opened a second shelter, outside Beirut.

Update: Since conducting these interviews on October 2nd and 3rd, security forces forcibly evicted people from the park, scattering them to other locations, on Sunday night.

A home in Haret Hreik is left badly damaged by Israeli airstrikes that assassinated Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Dahieh, Beirut. September 28, 2024. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

Mariam* was born in 1979. Until a year ago, she lived in Mays al-Jabal, a village in southern Lebanon, with her husband and three kids: her son is 16 and her daughters are 14 and 12 years old. The center of Mays al-Jabal is just over a kilometer (two thirds of a mile) from the Blue Line, the United Nations-designated line demarcating Lebanon from occupied Palestine. Since mid-October of last year, she and her family have relocated six times — most recently, on Wednesday, September 25, to Batloun, in the Chouf mountain range.

*Mariam spoke to The Public Source on the condition of anonymity, fearing repercussions or retaliation; her name has been changed. The interview was conducted in Arabic and its translation to English has been slightly edited for clarity and length.

Mays al-Jabal started to clear when the war began on October 8, but we stayed for a week. There was artillery shelling. The kids were getting stressed, but we stayed in the house because our situation wasn't terrible. Some nights I was afraid to turn on the lights. I tried to hide from my kids that I was scared. We have solar power in the house, so we had electricity, and I let the kids use electronics more than usual so they wouldn’t think about the war.

When the shelling came close to our house, we had to leave. We stayed in Jadra, in my sister-in-law’s family home. There was no generator there, so the electricity was often out. My husband kept going back to Mays al-Jabal, to check on the house, despite the relentless shelling of the village.

During the ceasefire in December, we went back to Mays al-Jabal for eight days. Then we left for Khirbet Selm for six months, where we heard a lot of shelling around us and saw a lot of destruction.

I only went back to our village once [after December], during Ramadan [March–April 2024]. We saw the destruction. Parts of our house were completely blown apart, and the roof had collapsed. My husband still went to our village from time to time. But after the Israelis shelled a family’s home in Mays al-Jabal, killing the parents and two of their sons, people stopped going, including my husband.

We went to Deir Intar in June [editor's note: about a 12-minute drive west of Khirbet Selm]. We stayed there, almost alone, until last Monday [September 23]. When Israel began carpet bombing, early in the morning on Monday, a rocket struck near our house, showering debris from all sides toward us. My children were in the house.

I didn’t know how to leave. The areas around us were also being shelled — I knew the situation in Khirbet Selm was bad, and I expected the road would be difficult, because there was shelling and bombing everywhere. We decided to stay put. It was a very difficult day. I put mattresses in the corridor, and we stayed there.

That night, we couldn’t sleep. There was no electricity; darkness was all around us. But what scared us the most was the sound of the missiles. You don’t know where they’re coming from, which is terrifying, but when you hear it fall somewhere, you feel relief that it didn’t hit you. It was really hard on my kids.

We love life, and we want to live safely in our country. But we live in an area with an enemy that shows no mercy.

I prayed for guidance [Salat al-Istikhaara, or “prayer of seeking counsel,” which practicing Muslims use for difficult decisions] and wondered if it was best to stay. Leaving turned out to be the right decision. I left everything to God. You can’t predict what will happen on the road. Deir Intar is empty now.

We left the next day, on Tuesday. There were no cars on the road. We only saw the Civil Defense and damaged cars on the side of the road. People were sitting on the street. Syrian families were walking, carrying their belongings on their backs, schools were overflowing… God help those of us who are displaced.

We arrived at my sister’s home in Saida. I told my husband that I didn’t want to go to a school. I have daughters, and the shared bathroom doesn’t offer privacy for washing and showering. You wouldn’t believe how much we tried looking for a house. I felt like a burden staying at my sister’s. We called many of the numbers shared on social media. People were saying that places were already full, or that they would call us back later.

We shouldn’t have to endure more humiliation than this. This is already too much…

My friend recommended someone and helped us secure a furnished house in Batloun for $500 a month. We loaded all of our stuff into the car and left Saida on Wednesday afternoon. I heard a lot about people helping others on the road. People were stopping to offer water, food, and hot meals.

We arrived to Batloun at around 4:30 and got properly settled in by six. It’s an abandoned house with three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and old infrastructure. We got connected to the electric grid and got Wi-Fi. It’s furnished and it’s nice, but I don’t feel comfortable. I’m in shock. Everything happened so fast.

When I was young, we lived in Houla, on the border, in 1982. I remember the tanks. Sometimes the Israeli tanks would pass by us, and we were afraid of them. We were afraid to go back home because of them. But we used to know our limits — where we could go, and where we couldn’t.

No one loves war and suffering. I can't complain; we’ve lost a lot, but everything can be replaced, and everything comes back, and this tragedy will end, and we’ll be happy.

Holding onto the land and belonging to it grounds us. This is where I buried my mother, and where we buried our martyrs.

My wish is to live a peaceful, worry-free life in my home, and for our children to be safe. But as long as the enemy exists, I cannot imagine having any sense of security. We are not lovers of death. We love life, and we want to live safely in our country. But we live in an area with an enemy that shows no mercy.

The people of Houla experienced massacres in 1948, so we have a long history with the enemy. This has made us stronger and willing to stand with anyone against oppression. We are against any kind of occupation, and we feel with the people of Palestine because we were also occupied [editor's note: After Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli military and its allied Lebanese militia, the South Lebanon Army, occupied Houla and other villages in the south until Hezbollah and other resistance groups expelled them in May 2000]. May God be with them and heal the wounded and comfort the families of the martyrs. We stand against injustice because everything we have lived through before, and continue to live through, is an injustice.

We have steadfastness and resistance; it’s in the nature of our land. We are attached to our land, even though it's a land that's difficult to live on. It makes you strong, resilient, and willing  to sacrifice life to prevent anyone from attacking it.

Sometimes we get frustrated at home and say, “That’s it — if we get a visa, we will emigrate.” But as soon as I speak, I realize it’s not coming from the heart, and that no matter what happens, this is my home; and no matter what, I want to rebuild it. Holding onto the land and belonging to it grounds us. This is where I buried my mother, and where we buried our martyrs.

When I was a teenager, during the occupation, we used to go through checkpoints. We weren’t afraid of anything, because of how our parents raised us. We drank resilience from the waters of the South. There is nothing more precious than the soil of the South.

I have a lot of hope. In the end, this land must return to its owners. Even if there isn't a single house left, the land will return to its owners.