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Mon, Dec 23, 2024 | Jumada al-Aakhirah 22, 1446 | DXB
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Fleeing Israel strikes, families in south Lebanon seek shelter in schools
Tensions have spread to the Lebanese-Israeli border, where near-daily tit-for-tat attacks have emptied out entire villages
Zahira Omar Swaid, 40, who said she escaped from the south Lebanese village of Dahaira near the Israeli border sits with her family at a school where they take refuge in Tyre, Lebanon. — Reuters
Shocked by images of dead children in Gaza, Mustafa Al Sayyid quickly whisked his family to the closest shelter when Israeli strikes began near his village in southern Lebanon this week.
"What we are seeing on television — the massacres happening in Gaza, the children — it cuts your heart to pieces," said the 53-year-old from Beit Lif, barely 6km from the Israeli border.
"If I wasn't afraid this would happen to us, I wouldn't have left my home," said Sayyid, who has two wives and 11 children, around half of whom are under 10.
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The family is among nearly 4,000 people who have fled flashpoint areas near the Israeli frontier and flocked to the southern city of Tyre, according to local officials.
Around half are staying in three public schools that have been converted into makeshift shelters, while the rest hunker down with relatives or friends.
Reuters
AP
The scale of displacement has gradually swelled since the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a massive October 7 assault on southern Israel, killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping more than 200 in the deadliest attack in Israel's history.
Since then, some 4,385 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardments, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.
The tensions have spread to the Lebanese-Israeli border, where near-daily tit-for-tat attacks have emptied out entire villages.
At least 22 people, including four civilians, have been killed on the Lebanese side, according to an AFP tally. And at least three soldiers and one civilian have died in Israel.
Leaving their livelihoods behind
Fears of a spillover loom large in Lebanon's border villages, which were occupied by Israeli forces for 22 years before their withdrawal in 2000.
A steady stream of families, mostly from the pummelled village of Aita Al Shaab, queued at the Tyre municipality this week to secure a spot in one of the classrooms.
"We have reached full capacity in all of our shelters," said Tyre mayor Hassan Dbouk. "Now we are looking for a place to open a fourth centre."
In the border village of Dhayra, farms and olive groves have been abandoned at the height of the harvest season.
Farmers already crushed by a four-year-long economic crisis in Lebanon are bracing for an uncertain fate -- even if the fighting abruptly stops.
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"Everyone in Dhayra relies on farming. We have nothing but God and agriculture," said Mussa Suwaid, 47, speaking outside the Tyre shelter where he has been staying for a week.
"I have five sheep, each worth around $500. I left them without food and ran away," he added.
He also was forced to leave behind his 88-year-old father and his cow.
"He told me he would rather die than abandon the cow and his home," Suwaid said.
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