Israeli heavy bombings in Beirut’s crowded southern suburbs drive thousands to sleep outdoors
Israeli barrage of bombs on densely packed southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital of Beirut forced thousands of panicked people to camp out in the streets and public squares overnight to escape the devastating attacks of the occupying entity.
Since Friday afternoon, Israeli warplanes have conducted over 30 airstrikes, targeting residential buildings in Burj al-Barajneh, Kafaat, Choueifat, Hadath, al-Laylaki, and Mreijeh, with local media reporting upwards of 300 casualties as a result of the aggression.
“I expected the war to expand, but I thought it would be limited to (military) targets, not civilians, homes, and children,” said a south Beirut resident, who spent the night in a churchyard.
“I didn’t even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like this and suddenly find ourselves on the streets,” she further told the AFP, as the Lebanese capital woke up to the aftermath of a night at war, smoke rising from blazes in several places.
Footage broadcast by Al-Manar television from the crowded area of Beirut’s Dahiyeh shows flattened buildings, streets filled with rubble and clouds of smoke and dust above the area.
Martyrs’ Square, Beirut’s central public area, was crowded with exhausted and anxious families sheltering outdoors.
“The bombing intensified at night and our house started shaking,” said a 55-year-old local, who slept in the square after fleeing the Burj al-Barajneh neighborhood in Dahiyeh where strikes landed.
“What did the (Lebanese) people do to deserve this?” she asked, adding that her home had been razed by Israeli airstrikes during the 2006 war, known as the 2006 Lebanon War.
The recent attacks are part of the Israeli regime’s intensified assault on Lebanon, which has become more deadly in recent days, resulting in over 700 deaths nationwide since Monday.
The new attacks came less than a week after the Tel Aviv regime killed 38 people, including three children and seven women as well as Ibrahim Aqil, one of the senior commanders of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement, in an attack on a residential building in a southern Beirut suburb.
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