Lebanese civilians flee amid deadly Israeli strikes on Beirut suburbs
Lebanese civilians have fled southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs as a deadly escalation erupts between Israel and Hezbollah. Many are seeking sanctuary in makeshift shelters across Lebanon’s capital.
At least 31 people were killed and 149 wounded in overnight Israeli strikes on Beirut’s suburbs and southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Highways became gridlocked as people evacuated following Israel’s deadliest assault on Lebanon in over a year. The strikes came shortly after Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel for the first time in more than 12 months.
“I don’t know how long it will take us to reach Beirut,” said Ali Hamdan, who had been travelling for seven hours on what should have been a 30-minute journey from his village to Sidon. “I’m headed towards Beirut, but I don’t know where yet. We don’t have a place to stay.”
In Beirut, public schools transformed into emergency shelters. Families arrived with mattresses and belongings, while volunteers registered names as classrooms and courtyards filled with displaced people.
Hussein Abu Ali, who fled with his family from a southern Beirut suburb, recounted the strikes: “My son began shaking and crying. Where are you supposed to go? I stepped outside, then back in because I was afraid of shooting in the air. I gathered my children and went down to the street.”
Nadia al-Salman, displaced from Majdal Zoun in the south, declared: “They do not intimidate or frighten us, and they will not make us retreat even an inch from the path of resistance.”
Debris covers a street beside an apartment building hit by an Israeli air strike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburb.
Qatar says it downed two Iranian fighter jets as conflict widens
Qatar says its air force has “successfully shot down” two Iranian fighter aircraft, as the fallout from United States-Israel attacks on Iran and Iranian retaliation continues across the wider Middle East.
The Qatari Defence Ministry said in a statement on Monday that it downed two SU-24 aircraft while seven ballistic missiles and five drones fired by Iran were also intercepted.
Iran has launched a series of retaliatory strikes on targets in Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries in recent days.
Reporting from the Qatari capital Doha, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said the downing of the Iranian aircraft marks “a major military escalation”. “This represents perhaps the beginning of air-to-air combat, and that is a serious escalation in a conflict that is already spiralling three days in,” Basravi said.
Iran did not immediately comment on the Qatari Defence Ministry’s statement on Monday. A spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently said the country has the right to defend itself “with all might” in response to the US-Israel attacks, which have killed several senior Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
