Lebanon: Beirut's energy loss after Israeli air strikes

Lebanon: Beirut's energy loss after Israeli air strikes

When Israel bombed the center of Beirut in the early morning hours of Thursday, it seemed to destroy the remaining feeling of security in the Lebanese capital.

intensive attacks on Beirut

For almost a week, Israel from the Schiitenmiliz Hezbollah has been bombing dominated residential areas in the southern suburbs of Beirut. But the attack on a Schiitenviertel near the parliamentary building - part of the city that has been spared with Israel in 2006 since the war - signals that the extent of the Israeli offensive quickly expanded.

Windows in the skyline illuminated when the noise of the rockets tore people out of sleep. A dark cloud of smoke rose from the heart of the capital, while people desperately contacted their relatives and tried to find out where the Israeli bombs were hit this time.

devastating effects on the civilian population

The attack met an office of the Islamic health authority associated with Hezbollah in the central district of Bashura and demanded nine fatalities, including seven paramedics, according to the Ministry of Health and the Health Authority itself.

on the street affected by the attacks, people wandered around. Women held babies in their arms and moved through chaos. In contrast to the southern suburbs and other parts of the country, there was no warning to evacuate this Schiitenviertel.

The Mohammad-Al-Amin Mosque is just a few steps away, a colossal symbol of the city, which has now become a symbol of constant change for around 1 million people that were sold by the Israeli air offensive in Lebanon, which was sold last Monday.

The escape to the mosque

Families fled before the central attack in Beirut fled the grounds of the mosque. As soon as they had arrived, many of the people who had already camped there packed their things to flee again.

The newly displaced people replaced those who had already become homeless and were now looking for safer places north of the city.

"The whole mosque made up. People ran away because they thought they were bombarded," reported a medieval woman named Fatima. She sat on a folded box and leaned against a pillar. "And while they fled, others came."

"If I weren't so sick, I would have fled. But I don't have the strength to be driven out again."

The reality of the displaced

The Mostafa family from the southern suburbs of Senreut shares three mattresses under the huge pillars of the mosque. "I can't afford to leave this place," said Mostafa Mostafa. "Isn't it sad what happened to us? We were a proud Lebanese family with a roof over our head. Our home gave us. Now take a look at our condition."

The escalating fights

Since the beginning of the offensive in Lebanon, over 1,300 people have been killed, based on the Libanese Ministry of Health. Israel's war cabinet said that 60,000 people sold by the Hezbollah impact workers. Hezbollah on his part said that it would only accept a ceasefire on the border between Israel and Lebanon if the Israeli offensive ends on the Gaza Strip.

Israel states that his attacks on arms camps, command structures and the general infrastructure of Hezbollah aim. However, many of the killed are considered civilians, according to the Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. A Aircraft experts declared opposite CNN that the intensity of the Libanon campaign already corresponds to the in Gaza, where a ground, air and naval offensive equalized large parts of the besieged strip.

a dangerous turning point

The war in Lebanon could have reached another dangerous turning point. Israel pulled his troops together on the border and started with its soil offensive. Again and again artillery and drone attacks were rained in the area that force people to flee, while the Israeli military tries to pave the way for an invasion in the south of the country and to build a buffer zone.

Nevertheless, the troops faced a bitter resistance of Hezbollah fighters, whose mountainous home country is preparing great challenges of an invasive force. Accordingly, Israeli armed forces have passed the ceasefire line between Lebanon and Israel in the past two days, carried out raids, suffered losses and withdrawn again.

uncertainty and fear

"We are literally paralyzed. We can do nothing," said Mahdi, a graduate of the American University of Beirut, who is only five minutes of driving away from the attack on the Islamic Health Authority.

Mahdi had fled to western Beirut from the southern suburbs and was looking for a job around his former campus. "We have no idea of our future," he added.

"It becomes more scary because it feels as if the situation is getting worse every day, and we don't really know which area is safe," said Hadeel, a medical student at the university that was founded almost 200 years ago by American missionaries.

"Will it always go on like this? Will the West speak, or are we just another country in the Middle East?"