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.

The residents of Hamra Star talk to writer Fátima Fouad el-Samman about having to face off with security forces in, “Amid War, Displaced Families Fight for Housing Rights.”

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.

Read Hussein's story in, “In My Free Time, I Go to the ER”: Frontline Healthcare Worker Isn’t Going Anywhere.

National News Agency (NNA)—Caretaker Information Minister Ziad Makary on Tuesday addressed a formal letter to The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, Associated Press, Fox News, Reuters, The New York Times, and the BBC.

In his letter, Makary emphasized the impermissibility of their accredited journalists accompanying Israeli occupation forces during their incursions into Lebanese territory, stating that such actions constitute a violation of international laws and lend legitimacy to the hostile activities of the occupation forces.

The letter reads as follows:

“I am writing to formally express the grave concern of the Lebanese government regarding the presence of journalists from your esteemed media outlet embedded with the Israeli occupation forces during recent incursions into our territory. The Israeli aggression is in direct violation of international law and represent an unacceptable infringement upon our national sovereignty.

While we respect and uphold the essential principles of press freedom, it is vital to emphasize that press freedom must operate within the bounds of the law and respect for territorial integrity. The practice of embedding journalists with foreign military forces during incursions into another nation’s territory raises serious legal concerns..."

Read Maraky's full letter to the news outlets on the NNA's website.

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.

“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.

Read the full report in “‘Where Is Your Humanity?’ African Families Demand Humanitarian Evacuation.”

NNA journalist Ali Hussein Daoud has been reporting from south Lebanon as Israel relentlessly bombards his city. He refuses to leave his home despite the escalating violence, food shortages, and the forced displacement of tens of thousands. “It's more honorable to die in my own home,” he says.

Journalist Layla Yammine has been following up with Ali since October 1 in this “Urgent Dispatch From Nabatieh.”

Edited by Farah-Silvana Kanaan & Sintia Issa

Said Arikat of Al Quds Daily DC questions US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller in Washington on October 8, 2024. (Video via X/Twitter)

The United States government has given Israel at least $17.9 billion in military aid over the past year, according to a new report by Brown University’s Costs of War project, published on Monday. This is by far the largest amount in a single year, since US military aid to Israel began in 1959. These transfers are, according to Amnesty International, a violation of international and US law. “President Biden must end U.S. complicity with the government of Israel’s grave violations of international law and immediately suspend the transfer of weapons to the government of Israel,” Amnesty International said in April.

The sum is likely an undercount, the researchers note, citing the Biden administration’s “efforts to hide the full amounts of aid and types of systems through bureaucratic maneuvering.” It also does not include a $20.3 billion arms sale approved by the Biden administration on August 13, 2024, which currently faces a challenge from US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) that could block it, if Sanders’ resolution gets enough votes. “Sending more weapons is not only immoral, it is also illegal,” Sanders said in a statement. The Associated Press says the resolution is unlikely to pass.

The $17.9 billion figure is “a fraction of the full value of U.S. support for this war, which will only be determined over time,” the researchers say.

Among the known transfers, researchers found $4 billion allocated to the Iron Dome, David’s Sling missile defense systems, and tens of thousands of artillery shells, cannon rounds, anti-tank missiles, bombs of various sizes, and other military supplies. 

Some of these weapons systems have been used in Gaza and are also used in Lebanon. The massive Israeli strike that killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and a still unknown number of martyrs, on September 27, included American-made 900kg (2,000lb) Mark-84 series guided bombs, according to US Senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona). A report in the Washington Post said that Israel appears to have used US-made BLU-109s, a type of bunker-buster heavy bomb, in the attack.

In comparison to the billions the US is spending on Israeli military aid, the US spent a relatively paltry $386 million on aid in Lebanon in the past year, and recently announced an additional $157 million. In Palestine, the US has "announced... more than $1 billion" in aid since October 2023, including $336 million announced on September 30. The cost of damage done by US weapons so far in this war is likely to far outmatch these amounts.

Since 1959, the United States has provided Israel with $251.2 billion in military assistance, adjusted for inflation, the Costs of War report says.

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. Charred and eviscerated of walls and furniture, the apartment 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.

Journalist Tracy J. Jawad speaks to people whose loved ones are buried in Bachoura Cemetery, and draws parallels between the Israeli military’s indiscriminate Gaza Doctrine and its bombardment of Lebanon, in Can the Dead Rest? Israeli Strike on Bachoura Damages Beirut's Historic Cemetery.

Following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, Lebanese state institutions handed over vast amounts of sensitive information — from communications data to personal records — to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s foreign investigators.

What role did that play in the recent assassinations of Hezbollah leaders? 

Criminal justice expert Omar Nashabe looks at the cost that Lebanon paid for the Special Tribunal in, “What Does the International Court Have To Do with the Assassination of Hezbollah Leaders?”

Ireland and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have refused Israeli demands to abandon a UNIFIL border outpost, known as post 6-52, near the southern Lebanese village Maroun al-Ras. Late last week, the Israeli government demanded that UNIFIL and troop-contributing countries step aside as it attempts to launch a ground invasion into Lebanon. Ireland currently has roughly 300 soldiers present at post 6-52.

Over the weekend, Irish President Michael D. Higgins assailed the Israeli army’s “outrageous” threats against peacekeepers which he said “sought to have them evacuate the villages that they are defending.” 

In a rare statement directly criticizing the Israeli military by name, UNIFIL called the Israeli army’s “recent activities” near 6-52 “extremely dangerous.” “It is unacceptable to compromise the safety of UN peacekeepers carrying out their Security Council-mandated tasks,” it added.

Since October 2, the area around Maroun al-Ras has seen heavy fighting amid attempted Israeli incursions  into  the village. At least eight Israeli soldiers have died in the fighting, and Hezbollah has said it destroyed three Merkava tanks there. Hezbollah has not disclosed its own casualties, if any. On Monday morning, Hezbollah announced it had fired rockets on Israeli forces gathered in the village park, indicating the invading forces may have advanced beyond UNIFIL’s position, at least temporarily. 

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.

In ‘“Open for Lebanese Only”: Displaced Migrant Workers Left With Few Options,’ journalist Richard Salame talks to a handful of the 176,000 migrant workers now in Lebanon. Read more to learn why they are especially vulnerable amid the ongoing Israeli war on Lebanon.

Shortly after midnight on October 3, 2024, Israel struck the center of the capital for the first time in nearly a year of war. The strike targeted an office of the Islamic Health Authority — a civil defense and paramedic service affiliated with Hezbollah. As of 12:40 pm Thursday, the strike has killed 9 people and injured 14 others, according to the Public Health Ministry. DNA testing is being conducted on remains found at the site and further deaths may be announced. The Islamic Health Authority has announced the names of seven people, all healthcare workers or volunteer paramedics, who were killed in the strike, including its Beirut chief Raja Zreik. Attacks on healthcare workers are illegal under international law, regardless of political affiliation. The strike, next to a cemetery and a school and just a stone's throw from the Prime Minister's Office, endangered thousands of other civilians, including nearly 3,000 people sheltering in the Azarieh Center a half a kilometer away.

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.”

In "Syrians Face Double Displacement," Tracy J. Jawad talks to some of the many Syrians who are left stranded on the street after their second displacement.  

Amid the continuous Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, Dahieh has suffered widespread destruction to its dense urban fabric, where hundreds of thousands of people live, work, eat, and sleep. On Wednesday, October 2, 2024, Hezbollah invited the media to examine the aftermath of recent Israeli strikes, as many of the affected sites had previously been difficult to access. The Public Source saw entire building complexes reduced to rubble by Israeli missiles, which Israel claims – implausibly – were targeted strikes on Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. In October 2008, Israel officially outlined what is now known as the “Dahieh Doctrine,” a tactic developed during its 2006 war on Lebanon. The doctrine involves the large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure in neighborhoods that support the resistance, with the aim of forcing the population into submission. While Israel asserts that this strategy is intended to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities, its implementation primarily affects key civilian infrastructure and is a violation of international law. 

View more images in this photo blog by Marwan Bou Haidar.

In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied south Lebanon. After 18 years of brutal occupation, Israel suffered a historic defeat, the first in the Zionist entity’s history, and was forced to withdraw, humiliated. Six years later, in July 2006, Israel waged another war against Lebanon. For 33 days, it sought to occupy parts of South Lebanon — and for 33 days, it failed. Despite repeated attempts to re-establish its control over the land, Israel was once again forced to retreat, suffering the second defeat in its entire history, both times on the same stubborn soil of south Lebanon.

Over the past month, Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed their intention to reoccupy south Lebanon. For us, the future seems to be uncertain and indeed much of it is. One thing is certain, however — they will be defeated. Forty-two years ago, in a roundtable journal organized by al-Tariq magazine, Hassan Hamdan, known as Mahdi Amel — a Marxist philosopher and militant from south Lebanon — warned against acquiescence and pessimism of the intellect and will. With unwavering intellectual clarity, even amid war, and unyielding political militancy, even in seemingly desperate times, Amel articulated the guiding principle that continues to shape Lebanon’s present and future as a bastion of resistance — a node that both haunts and breaks Israel.

Ahmad Elamine, a Lebanese-British doctor working in Psychiatry in London, translates Mahdi Amel’s “The Path of Revolution in Lebanon is Our Universe” (al-Tariq, 1982).

Thousands of displaced families seek refuge along the Corniche of Beirut and in Martyrs’ Square on Saturday, September 28. Lebanon’s Minister of Industry George Bouchikian estimates that an additional half a million people fled Dahieh over the weekend, after Israel repeatedly bombed different neighborhoods in the southern suburbs from Friday at noon until Saturday at dawn. The government estimates the total number of displaced around the country at over one million. Thousands, if not more, are left on the street as designated shelters are too sparse for the growing scale of the displacement. The government’s response has been wildly inadequate. Most shelters are severely under-equipped, with mattresses few and far between, and food, water, and medicine in short supply. Over 100,000 people have left Lebanon for Syria amid ongoing Israeli bombardment, according to the head of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. 

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 on Thursday, September 26, and its translation to English has been slightly edited for clarity and length. 

Read her testimony in “We Drank Resilience From the Waters of the South.”

After last week’s pager and two-way radio attacks, as people in Lebanon wondered whether it was safe to even call their loved ones, pro-Israel social media accounts erupted with a celebration of maiming: grisly jokes and memes gloated over severed limbs, exploding phones, and supposedly neutered men. To put the pager attacks in the context of Israel’s ongoing practice of maiming, The Public Source reached out to Jasbir K. Puar, a professor of Global Race Studies at the University of British Columbia and author of the award-winning book “The Right To Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability.”

We wanted to hear her thoughts on the pager and radio attacks, in which thousands of people lost hands and eyes in a split second. How might these attacks complicate the typical framing of liberal humanitarianism, which presents such attacks as more “humane” than outright killing? How does this new spectacle of horror fit into Israel’s “humane” image, which has long been central to its justification for the right to maim?

Read Puar’s response in Jasbir Puar on The Pager Attacks and the Right to Maim

With the sun barely rising, Israel began its heaviest bombardment campaign to date on more than 1,600 locations in the South, Nabatieh, Beqaa, and Baalbek-Hermel governorates, indiscriminately striking homes, urban squares, and countryside. In the evening, Israel carried out a strike in Dahieh, Beirut’s southern suburbs, reportedly targeting Hezbollah commander Ali Karaki. In under 24 hours, Israel killed 558 people and injured 1,835, according to the Public Health Ministry. It was, according to the New York Times, “one of the most intense air raids in contemporary warfare.”

In response, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets towards Haifa, striking the Ramat David base and weapons manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which were hit the day before. It also struck the Ein Zeitim base of the Israeli Northern Corps with dozens of rockets.

On the deadliest day in decades, families fled towards Beirut to escape with their lives, mattresses stacked on the roofs of their cars, carrying whatever belongings they could rescue. Thousands were trapped in hours-long traffic jams along the congested highways from the South to the capital.

By the end of day, hundreds of thousands were displaced. Many had no time to pack when the killing spree began, and all they took with them were the clothes on their backs, wallets, and whatever small comforts they could grab.

Excerpt from an interview with Democracy Now! on Israel’s aggressive airstrikes across Lebanon and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands:

“If the question is, ‘Where is Israel attacking right now?’ It's been fairly indiscriminate. We've seen that cities and towns, including the heart of Nabatieh was bombed; Ghazieh, next to Saida, also the square was bombed. So we're talking about attacks that are happening in the thick of the towns — densely populated areas, not just in disparate places. And you know, at the heart of this is an attempt to manufacture consent and try to portray most Southernees as Hezbollah operatives; their homes as essentially depots and caches.”

Watch the full interview on Democracy Now!, Israel Bombs Lebanon After Blowing Up Pagers in "Act of Mass Mutilation." Is Ground Invasion Next?

Fists of resolve rise in the air and handfuls of rice fall on the coffin. Under the banner, “we will not abandon Palestine,” mourners, in their hundreds, if not thousands, assemble for the funeral of senior Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil, on Sunday, September 22, 2024 in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburb.

The martyr had been part of the resistance since its founding in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Through the ‘80s and ‘90s, Aqil was a field commander in the struggle to liberate the South, and in 2006, he lent his long experience to foil Israel’s attempt to re-invade and occupy. Decades of his life were dedicated to training fighters and ensuring readiness and continuity for the resistance. In 2006, he formed Hezbollah’s elite unit, the Radwan Force, which he led until his martyrdom. On September 20, Israel assassinated him for honoring a principled, military commitment to the resistance in Gaza and the liberation of Palestine.

In the same attack that afternoon, Israel killed at least 31 people and injured 68, according to the Public Health Ministry. An F-35 struck two apartment buildings as families gathered for lunch or returned home from work or school.

View more images in this photo blog by Marwan Bou Haidar.

As the Zionist state and its supporters employ maiming and killing as their primary tactics, people in Lebanon have risen up more than ever in defiance of these tactics. Palestinian nurses in Lebanon are offering free healthcare to people injured in the two massacres. Palestinians and Lebanese are donating blood. Some were so affected by the brutality of the attack that they were ready to donate one of their eyes or kidneys to the wounded; one person wrote on Facebook that he was looking to donate “to console those who have lost their eyes, to fulfill some of what is owed to those who sacrificed for us.” A campaign of people offering their organs swept social media and inundated the head of the Association for Organ Donations with calls to fill out organ donation forms.

Read more in researcher Nisrine Chaer’s “Affirmations of Life” Confront Israel’s “Right to Kill”

Excerpt from an interview with Democracy Now! on the wave of explosions in electronic devices booby-trapped by Israel:

The events of the past two days have caused a lot of panic, a lot of fear, and, to a large extent, paranoia, which was aided by a disinformation campaign, to a large extent. Over the past couple of days, or at least yesterday, for the most part, people were receiving messages over different WhatsApp groups, on social media platforms, that any and every electronic device can be detonated by the Israelis. So people were scared of using their cellphones. People were hearing that even kitchen appliances were exploding, solar panels, laptops and so on. Thankfully, for the most part, this turned out to be a disinformation campaign, and it did not really— was not really materializing on the ground as was being reported across different channels. That may be the only solace from the events of the past couple of days, where we saw civilian areas and civilians being targeted.

This has been widely reported in the Western press as a sophisticated campaign that targeted alleged Hezbollah operatives, but the reality is that, for the most part, these explosions were occurring in civilian areas, in vegetable markets and in the supermarket and the funeral, as you mentioned. And that’s on one hand, but also, on the other, not everybody who’s carrying these pagers and these walkie-talkies is a Hezbollah fighter, nor were any of them on the combat field or on the frontlines in the southern part of the country. It’s very important to note that Hezbollah is not just a resistance group or a militant group. Hezbollah is also a political party here in Lebanon that is represented in Parliament. And Hezbollah also runs and operates several large civil institutions. So, we saw medical personnel and healthcare workers being killed and injured and maimed by these explosions. We saw children. We saw even the Iranian diplomat. So this was a indiscriminate attack that made the Lebanese population feel that anyone can be targeted, at any point, anywhere in the country.

Watch the full interview on Democracy Now!, Lebanon: 37 Dead, 3,400+ Injured in Wave of Explosions in Electronic Devices Booby-Trapped by Israel