On this Saturday morning, however, cars were bumper to bumper on both sides of the road. Many were double parked and more kept arriving, as people continued to flee the devastating waves of Israeli attacks on southern parts of Lebanon’s capital .
Earlier that evening, the Israeli military destroyed a block of buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing at least six people and injuring another 91. The death toll is expected to increase further. Israel stated that the intended target was a central Hezbollah headquarters, and that the organization’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had been killed.
Hezbollah has yet to release a word regarding his fate. People on the seaside lay down mattresses on the pavement or towels on the beach. Further down the dunes, other people set up plastic chairs facing the water or gathered around tables drinking coffee and smoking argileh pipes. Groups of kids ran around and played.
Some people said they would spend the night here, while others said they were unsure. They didn’t think that far ahead, they just knew they had to escape Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The Israeli military had also released a statement, including publishing maps, saying that three buildings in the area would be hit
Ayman, a 24-year-old Syrian from Deir Az Zor, told Al Jazeera that “there’s no one left” in Dahiyeh, a heavily populated area of southern Beirut. “Everyone’s leaving. “Whoever doesn’t have a car flees by scooter, and whoever doesn’t have a scooter flees by foot,” he explained.
Ayman sat with a group of Syrian guys who had come to the beach because they had nowhere else to go. A handful of them stated that they would try to return to Syria.