Lebanon is no stranger to conflict. But Monday was the deadliest day the country had seen in a generation.
According to Lebanese officials, Israeli airstrikes killed nearly 500 people, including at least 35 children and 58 women.
Almost half the number killed in the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
The conflict was savage. I still remember the stench of the victims in the refrigerator trucks, as it was too dangerous to carry bodies out when Israeli attack drones and warplanes patrolled overhead.
When the fighting finally stopped, about 1,100 Lebanese were killed. On the Israeli side, 21 Israeli soldiers and 43 civilians were killed.
Fighting in the Shadows: On the battlefield, Hezbollah’s fighters must be a formidable foe. They fought an Israeli ground invasion in 2006. But throughout the war, I didn’t see a single armed Hezbollah fighter, such was their ability to blend in.
The Iran-backed group operates as a “state within a state” in a deeply divided country with a presidentless and borderline bankrupt government, where neighborhoods still bear the scars of a 15-year civil war.
Lebanese citizens are well aware of how terrifying the Israeli military’s efforts to target Hezbollah are.
On Friday, Israeli jets carried out an airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in which they killed several senior Hezbollah commanders. But the missiles also destroyed a nine-story building in a densely populated neighborhood, killing 45 people, including women and children.
The Israeli military accuses Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields.
Families run: But that’s little consolation for Lebanese citizens like my mother-in-law, who lived a block and a half from the building destroyed by Israeli jets. My family struggled for hours to evacuate my wife’s grandmother who had suffered a stroke.
As panicked civilians fleeing Israeli bombardment in south and east Lebanon on Monday left, my mother-in-law has taken refuge in another area.
Four generations now gather in one apartment, including a one-week-old baby, aunts and uncles who work as teachers and building contractors. They have nothing to do with Hezbollah.
We hope and pray that no bombs will be dropped in their neighborhood.
