People displaced by war fear Hezbollah could be hiding among them

Israel’s bombing campaign in the Dahieh neighborhood: a precautionary measure against attacks of the Shia sect in Lebanon’s civil war

They are not intending to discriminate against anyone, but rather a precautionary measure. “We don’t know the men and maybe they are fighters with Hezbollah, so Israel could bomb this building if Hezbollah men are staying in it,” Jaber says, while preparing bread orders for customers early one Saturday morning.

“For children and women, we welcome everyone, but we’re on high alert for every man coming into our neighborhood,” says 24-year-old Elee Jaber, who manages a family-owned bakery in Ein el Remmene, which sits next to Dahieh, a once densely populated Shia neighborhood and Hezbollah stronghold that Israel has been pummeling.

If the guards — many of whom hold day jobs as shopkeepers, teachers, actors — do see something that raises their suspicions, like an unfamiliar car with tinted windows or more people than usual, particularly men, frequenting a residential building, they try to quietly gather information from longtime residents and neighbors before calling the Lebanese Armed Forces, who ultimately take over investigating.

“People are aware that they don’t want this to happen again, and there is a will among them that they don’t want to do it,” says Gemayel, founding member of the neighborhood watch group and who had a role in Lebanon’s civil war. The main Christian militia in the 1980’s was an ally of Israel and was headed by Bashir Gemayel. He lost his life because of that alliance. The same area where the night guards patrol is where the Maronite Christian assassinated the elder Gemayel after he was elected president in 1982.

The work of Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon has made many people who belonged to other sects wary of the Shias, who are displaced in their midst.

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They hide under a tree or a dark entrance of a business with only a flashlight and a baton, and are on alert for anyone who may look out of place.

His parents fled their home in the predominantly Shia city of Nabatieh in september with only their clothes on. His father didn’t have enough time to get his identification when the city was hit by airstrikes.

Still, with so many displaced people looking for new homes, and with anxieties growing, rents have skyrocketed, leaving families like Ezzat’s with few options. He’s happy to have his parents stay with him for as long as they need, but it’s been hard watching his mother and father go out of their way to make sure their neighbors feel secure. His father, who owned a bookstore before the war displaced them, never leaves the apartment for fear he would draw too much attention, as they don’t invite friends or relatives over to keep a low profile. He has become depressed due to it.

“I’ll call people that are not renting anymore and they’ll say ‘Oh, we’re not renting anymore’, but then I’ll call again and start talking in English and then it’s different,” he says, showing how any hint of a displaced person looking “If you talk in French or English, it’s like ‘Oh, he’s OK, he’s cool, he’s a good Shia.’ “

People get scared when a person goes to another town or city and bombs a building. I would question someone if they came to my building because there is a real threat.

Source: In Lebanon, residents fear Hezbollah could be hiding among people displaced by war

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Last month, in a video speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Lebanon’s main religious groups and called on them to turn against Hezbollah.

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In a country where memories of the brutal civil war are still vivid and the eventual reconciliation among groups remains fragile, it may not take much to trigger tensions between religious groups. Lebanon avoided a national census to avoid getting into a sectarian conflict.

While he doesn’t believe Lebanon will repeat its past, Nadim Gemayel does believe that it is a good time to bring Hezbollah in line with other groups that gave up their arms at the end of the war.

“[Former Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah took us to this war without even asking us. He doesn’t have the idea to build shelters in case of war, according to another founding member of the neighborhood watch. We are the ones who are damaged. The economy is zero, our country is zero, all of the villages in the south are destroyed, and there is no economy at all. I don’t want people to tell me how to live and I want a Lebanon that looks like me, like my culture.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities that do not distinguish between civilians and militants in their count but say more than half the dead are women and children. Hamas hiding among civilians is one of the things Israel targets.

Joyce Msuya, the UN’s top humanitarian official, told the Security Council that acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes are being committed in Gaza. “The daily cruelty we see in Gaza seems to have no limits,” she said, pointing to recent developments in Beit Hanoun.

The sounds of gunfire could be heard as drones blared announcements that people should move to Gaza City. “The tanks are outside,” he said. We don’t know where to go.

Many Palestinians there fear Israel aims to permanently depopulate the area to more easily keep control of it. On Tuesday, witnesses told The Associated Press that Israeli troops had encircled at least three schools in Beit Hanoun, forcing hundreds of displaced people sheltering inside to leave.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip in the past day, including 11 at a makeshift cafeteria in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone, medics said. In Lebanon, warplanes killed 33 people in the country on Tuesday.

The military said the number of soldiers killed in the assault in northeastern Gaza had risen to 24.

In line with US pressure, Israel allowed more aid into Gaza, where it has told Palestinians evacuated from other parts of Gaza to take refuge. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless in tents in and around Muwasi, which has few public services.

So far, Israel has fallen short. In October, 57 trucks a day entered Gaza on average, and 75 a day so far in November, according to Israel’s official figures. The United Nations puts the number lower, at 39 trucks daily since the beginning of October.

The siege has resulted in no food or aid allowed in for more than a month, leading to fears that thousands of Palestinians are going to die.

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The director of the hospital said that the couple and their daughter, Eliaa, were killed.

The latest bombardment came as the United States said it would not reduce its military support for Israel after a deadline passed for allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza. International aid groups said that Israel had failed to meet U.S demands despite some progress from the State Department.

There was no immediate word on casualties. The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure, including command centers and weapons production sites, without providing evidence.

A strike on an apartment building killed at least six people. The destroyed home belonged to Murtada’s uncle, who had fled from Dahiyeh last month. He said three children were among the dead and other people were missing.

Israel has been carrying out intensified bombardment of Lebanon since late September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and stop more than a year of cross-border fire by the Lebanese militant group.

The two people who were killed in the explosion of a rocket in a storage building in Nahariya were first responders. Another two people were wounded by shrapnel in a separate impact outside the town.

A Hezbollah drone smashed into a nursery school near the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Tuesday morning, but the children were inside a bomb shelter and there were no injuries. There were scattered debris across the playground after the impact.

Israeli strikes across Gaza kill 46At the same time, Israel has continued its 13-month campaign in Gaza set off by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel.

The center of a “humanitarian zone” that the Israel’s military declared later in the war was hit by an Israeli strike late Monday.

At least eleven people were killed, and two children were among the casualties, according to officials at the hospital. Video from the scene showed men pulling bloodied wounded from among tables and chairs set up in the sand in an enclosure made of corrugated metal sheets.

A strike on a house in the northern town of Beit Hanoun killed 15 people on Tuesday, including relatives of Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat, who has been reporting from the north.