“Nobody has any idea what to do,” said one of the many residents who fled the Dahiya, an area near the Lebanese capital where Hezbollah holds sway, amid overnight Israeli airstrikes.
The streets of Beirut, Lebanon, were eerily empty on Saturday morning. Most stores were shuttered, and few cars passed along the usually bustling streets. Drones buzzed overhead.
After a barrage of Israeli airstrikes overnight, the city was coming to terms with a startling new reality: The simmering conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, once mostly contained to southern Lebanon, had firmly reached the capital. Now, many people said, even Beirut was not safe.
Amid that ghostliness, thousands of residents from the Dahiya, the crowded area south of Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway, were scattered across the city after fleeing their homes as the Israeli strikes rained down.
They found refuge on sidewalks, on the beachfront and in small parks downtown — areas that they hoped were far enough from the Dahiya to be safe. Some had suitcases and backpacks, hastily packed the night before. Others had rushed out with nothing but their cellphones and the clothes they were wearing.
“Nobody has any idea what to do,” said Zakiya Khattab, 67, who had spent the night with her son and grandchildren in Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut. “We would love to go back, but we can’t — it’s not safe.”
The family fled their home in the Dahiya around 1 a.m. on Saturday, she said, after their house began shaking from the Israeli airstrikes. The tremors were so strong that four of her grandchildren leaped out of bed, terrified.
