beirut, lebanon
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Lebanon is no stranger to war, but this conflict feels different.
Just 18 months ago, Israeli bombs rained down on the country for several weeks. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have invaded the southern part of the country with the aim of attacking and eradicating the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah from its strongholds.
The country is now reeling from fears of new and even more massive airstrikes, killing more than 1,000 people since March 2, when Hezbollah fired projectiles at Israel in revenge for the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, triggering Israeli retaliation.
The walls of the capital Beirut bear the scars of past conflicts. Although much of the city lives in uneasy calm, the conflict cannot be overlooked.
“I keep thinking it’s a traffic jam,” one taxi driver told CNN. “Then I remembered it was all the cars parked.”
Along almost every major road in central Beirut, cars are evacuating war-displaced families, turning normally congested roadways into improvised camps for desperate people.
CNN attended the funeral of five children aged 6 to 13 who were killed in the attack on their grandparents’ home in the southern village of Ilkay.
The blast completely destroyed their house, killing both of their grandparents and two of their uncles, one of whom was in a house across the street.
Relatives were buried amidst Israeli airstrikes. “May God destroy you, O Israel!” cried a woman in the congregation.
There was no evidence that the destroyed house had been used for military purposes.
According to UNICEF statistics, just over 100 children will be killed in the conflict in 2024, a number that Israel has already surpassed during its ongoing strikes.
According to Lebanese Health Ministry statistics, Israeli forces have killed at least 111 children since the start of the war, a death toll that raises questions about the number of child and other civilian casualties the IDF is willing to accept when charging airstrikes.
However, IDF international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani held Hezbollah responsible for the civilian losses.
“There are terrorist organizations that have a strategy of putting our civilians in their line of fire, putting their own civilians in their line of fire, and we are doing everything we can to avoid that,” he told CNN.
“We’ve seen it in Gaza, and wars come at a high cost. That doesn’t mean either side or the stronger side is waging war the wrong way.”
Mohamed Rida Taqi, the father of the four killed children who was also injured in the attack, said there was no Hezbollah presence in the house.
“Were there any Hezbollah martyrs?” he asked. “We are family.”
“Southern people don’t bow down,” he added. “Both against Israel and against America, which supports Israel with weapons.”
A strike is usually preceded by a warning from the Israel Defense Forces, but there was no warning for the explosion that struck central Ilkay.
“It feels like we’ve been waiting our whole lives for that post or that message or that ‘warning’ message that WhatsApp forwards,” Kim Moawad, 38, told CNN from Beirut.
“Well, I hope you’re all feeling better, too,” she said. “I would almost be disappointed if there wasn’t a strike because I’m just waiting for a strike.”
“When they attack, you feel strangely relieved because you feel like it’s over.”
The precision of some assassination attacks in Beirut, often hitting single windows without warning, has added new psychological horror to the conflict. These attacks have become a staple of this battle, and there are no clear limits to them. Central Beirut, Christian areas, and even areas near the IDP tents of displaced people are all under attack.
Many in Lebanon fear that the Israel Defense Forces have similar plans for their country, having seen the utter destruction that Israel has wreaked on the Gaza Strip, with much of the Palestinian territory turned into an uninhabitable lunar landscape.
“Lebanon used to be prosperous. But now Lebanon is destroyed, Lebanon no longer exists,” grandmother Sanaa Ghosn told CNN from a Beirut shelter for displaced people.
“I hope what happened in Gaza doesn’t happen to us.”
Israeli rhetoric only fuels these fears.
“The southern suburbs will look like Khan Yunis,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in early March, referring to Gaza City, which was largely reduced to rubble in Israeli operations.
The influx of one million displaced people has strained local relations with the communities that once welcomed their compatriots.
CNN heard from multiple displaced family members whose landlords asked questions about their last names and appearance. The questions appeared to be designed to weed out Shiite renters who may have ties to Shiite Muslim Hezbollah.
The United Nations has graphically shown that online attacks against internally displaced people have spiked around the time of these assassinations, and some sectarian rifts are beginning to emerge. It is also tracking similar calls made by prominent Lebanese nationals.
“There is a risk that this initial shock will turn into anger, frustration and potential tensions between communities,” Karolina Lindholm Billings, head of the UN Refugee Agency in Lebanon, told CNN from a Beirut school sheltering displaced families. The shelter, located in the capital’s Sin Erfil district, accommodates around 170 families and was filled within an hour of opening on the night the war began.
Lindholm-Billing said many displaced people did not have the opportunity to properly rebuild and recover after the last war. According to the United Nations, by 2024, about 13% of displaced people will have returned to the shelters where they were being held.
While the 2024 war saw relative unity in Lebanon behind clashes between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces (a sentiment driven by anger over the Gaza war), this conflict has seen even more opposition to the armed groups.
There was tangible support for it on the streets, at least in the early days of the IDF offensive, as the government promised to crack down on Hezbollah’s weapons arsenals.
“Young people, children, babies are dying. So we didn’t need to be in this war. And yet they say they’re supporting Iran. So what does that have to do with us?” Sako Demircan, a mechanic, told CNN in an ethnically mixed neighborhood of Beirut.
“We looked at the support for Gaza before and we saw what it was doing to us. And now they are also supporting Iran and we saw what it is doing to us,” he said. “I can’t live here.”
This all comes as international aid groups weather deep budget cuts after the U.S. government under President Donald Trump cut funding.
“I have worked for UNHCR for almost 30 years, and I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I cannot remember ever being so concerned and concerned about a situation,” Lindholm-Billing said, using the official name of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Israel orders more evacuations in south Lebanon as death toll exceeds 1,000
from hand to mouth
Rows of tents have sprung up along Beirut’s waterfront, each with families sheltering in place.
“I have never seen a situation like this,” Samr Zawi, one of the volunteers who led a team serving evening iftar meals to people breaking their Ramadan fast, told CNN. Some came from the city’s southern suburbs (an area with close ties to Hezbollah), while others came from throughout the south of the country.
The new tenants in some of the city’s most expensive real estate took shelter in the shadow of the port, where a massive explosion rocked much of Beirut in 2020, killing hundreds and destroying parts of the capital.
In Lebanon, trauma is compounding trauma.
Additional reporting by Lisa Courbebaisse and Elina Baudier Kim.
