Thousands flee southern Lebanon in search of safety and shelter

BEIRUT (AP) — Thousands of families from southern Lebanon packed cars and minivans with suitcases, mattresses, blankets and carpets and jammed the highway heading north toward Beirut on Monday to flee the deadliest Israeli bombardment since 2006.

Some 100,000 people living near the border had already been displaced since October, when the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces began exchanging near-daily fire against the backdrop of the war in Gaza. As the fighting intensifies, the number of evacuees is expected to rise.

In Beirut and beyond, schools were quickly repurposed to receive the newly displaced as volunteers scrambled to gather water, medicine and mattresses.

In the coastal city of Sidon, people seeking shelter streamed into schools that had no mattresses to sleep on yet. Many waited on sidewalks outside.

Ramzieh Dawi had arrived with her husband and daughter after hastily evacuating the village of Yarine, carrying just a few essential items as airstrikes boomed nearby.

“These are the only things I brought,” she said, gesturing at the three tote bags she carried.

Fatima Chehab, who came with her three daughters from the area of Nabatieh, said her family had been displaced twice in quick succession.

“We first fled to stay with my brother in a nearby area, and then they bombed three places next to his house,” she said.

Some people waited for hours in gridlocked traffic to get to what they hoped would be safety.

The Israeli military warned residents in eastern and southern Lebanon to evacuate ahead of a widening air campaign against what it said were Hezbollah weapons sites. More than 490 people were killed in Lebanon on Monday, officials said, and more than 1,240 people were wounded — a staggering toll for a country still reeling from a deadly attack on communication devices last week.

That attack was widely blamed on Israel, which has not confirmed or denied responsibility.

Israeli officials have said they are ramping up pressure against Hezbollah in an attempt to force it to stop firing rockets into northern Israel so that tens of thousands of displaced Israelis can return home. Hezbollah has said it will only stop when there is a cease-fire in Gaza.

At a public high school in the capital’s Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood, a few dozen men, women and children were milling around as volunteers registered them.

Yahya Abu Ali, who fled with his family from the village of Doueir in Lebanon’s Nabatieh district, struck a defiant tone.

“Don’t think that an airplane or a missile will defeat us, or that a wounded person or a martyr on the ground will weaken us,” he said. “On the contrary, it gives us strength, determination, and resilience.”

But Abu Ali also admitted that he was worried about his four siblings and their families who remained behind in southern Lebanon.

“God willing, I hope they will make it out,” he said.

Minar al-Natour, a volunteer at the school, said the team on the ground was still in “early stages” of preparations to host the larger numbers expected to arrive.

“We’re securing medicine, water, and of course all the essential supplies,” she said.

In Beirut’s Aisha Bakkar neighborhood — where some residents had received messages instructing them to evacuate — shop owner Mazen al-Hakeem said most had not heeded the call.

“There is no fear but there is anticipation,” he said. “People are filling their tanks with fuel, storing food and groceries. They are taking their precautions.”

Imran Riza, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, said in a statement the international body had allocated $24 million in emergency funding for people affected by the fighting.

With its economy in shambles and Beirut still recovering from a massive port explosion in 2020, Lebanon is “grappling with multiple crises, which have overwhelmed the country’s capacity to cope,” Riza said.

“As the escalation of hostilities in south Lebanon drags on longer than we had hoped, it has led to further displacement and deepened the already critical needs,” Riza said.

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Associated Press journalists Abby Sewell, Ali Sharafeddine and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut and Ahmad Mantash in Sidon, Lebanon, contributed to this report.