‘Nowhere is safe’: Fear grips Beirut as Israeli airstrikes hit beyond usual targets

Residents of central Beirut were left in shock on Friday as they surveyed the destruction caused by a deadly Israeli airstrike. The area, once considered safe is now filled with dust, rubble, and broken glass, leaving many fearing that no place in Lebanon is safe.

Israel’s intensified campaign has largely targeted Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the Bekaa Valley. Thursday’s Israeli airstrikes hit two residential buildings in neighborhoods that have swelled with displaced people fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere in the country.

In an adjacent building that was badly damaged, Ahmad al-Khatib stood in the apartment of his in-laws where he, his wife, Marwa Hamdan, and their 2 ½-year-old daughter, Ayla, suffered injuries from the blasts. He had just picked up his wife from work and she was performing the evening Muslim prayers at home when the explosions shook the neighborhood.

“The world suddenly turned upside down,” said the 42-year-old, tears running down his cheeks. He pulled his daughter out from under the debris of a wall that collapsed in a bedroom. Al-Khatib, who works for the postal service, said he found the force of the explosion had thrown his wife against a wall and a piece of metal had hit her in the head. His wife remains in the ICU at a Beirut hospital.

”God alone knows what the next target will be. It is terrifying. In the north, it’s scary. In the south, it’s scary. In the east, it’s scary. In the west, it’s scary. Where do we go?” 51-year-old Hoda Adly said.

She was performing Islam’s evening prayer at home on Thursday when a fireball erupted in the next building, raising a cloud of dust around her and plunging everything into chaos.

The following day, the road was strewn with glass and rubble as well as clothes, bags and other detritus of a normal day that had turned to disaster. People searched the debris for their possessions, their faces etched with shock.

Cars were piled on top of each other, twisted and crushed by the intensity of the explosion and many residents wore facemasks against the dust still hanging thick in the air.

The two airstrikes killed 22 people and wounded 117, Lebanese health authorities said. The attacks targeted a Hezbollah official, but security sources said he had survived.

Amer El Halabi, 55, who lived in the same building as Adly, said many displaced people had moved into their neighbourhood and feared that Israel was using claims that Hezbollah members were among them as a pretext to expand its strikes.

”These are all residential buildings that people have been residing in for over 30 years. Where is their conscience when they kill 22 people? For what? There is no humanity left,” he said.

Halabi said he was at home with his wife when the strikes hit. Minutes later, there were bodies strewn across the street.

Standing in front of his building, he said the Israeli surveillance drone perpetually buzzing over Beirut for weeks was intended to ”strain people’s nerves”.

”It has been here for over a month. It hasn’t left the sky. You can’t eat, you can’t drink, you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything,” he said.

The strike tore the facades of at least five buildings and shattered the windows of others along the street. In one building, the remains of a living room were exposed for all to see, family portraits still on the wall and a curtain, grey from dust, hanging limply to the side.

A few blocks away, a family stood in front of an apartment building loading mattresses, a washing machine and other belongings onto a small pickup truck.

They had fled south Lebanon and had come to al-Basta al-Fouqa neighbourhood thinking it was safe. Now they were heading to the northern city of Tripoli. ”They say it’s safe there,” said the woman of the family. ”We have elderly family members who couldn’t handle these explosions.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week warned the Lebanese public that they would suffer the same destruction that Israel’s campaign against Hamas has inflicted on Gaza since the militant group’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel unless they take action against Hezbollah.

With inputs from agencies.