Reporting From the Frontlines: Urgent Dispatch From Nabatieh

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.