Survivors of the deadliest Israeli attack on Lebanon in a year are frustrated that Lebanese families are paying the price for Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel.
Ali Khalifeh was watching the war unfold on his television set when a 900-kilogram bomb landed next to his home, turning the adjacent apartment building into a flaming crater. It was 7.45pm on Thursday in the Lebanese capital, and many Beirutis were sitting down for dinner. As Khalifeh, 72, checked the news updates on Al Jazeera, his wife hung out the washing on the balcony of their apartment in Basta, a working-class neighbourhood in central Beirut.
During our visit, emergency workers are still pulling dead bodies out of the rubble on stretchers. When we arrive, three people are missing; when we leave a few hours later, there are two. Prams, children’s toys and furniture jut out of the pile of rocks that was previously a four-storey apartment building. Plucked from the rubble and put on display on top of the debris is a burnt copy of a biography of Nasrallah, reflecting his iconic status among Hezbollah supporters.
Mouheiddine Makkawi, 64, and his wife left their home in Burj al-Barajneh, in Beirut’s heavily targeted southern suburbs, to stay with his sister in Basta a few weeks ago. It turned out to be no haven: their apartment was directly opposite the Israeli target site. The bomb blast devastated the apartment and destroyed his sister’s downstairs convenience store. “I don’t know what we can do now. We have no other place to go,” he says. He is furious at Israel for putting their lives at risk.
“There is no existence of any Hezbollah official or presence here,” Hezbollah MP Ibrahim Mousawi says. “This is a purely residential area. This is life that has turned into chaos and death.”
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