Lebanon: One war too many

Issued on: 18/10/2024 - 

It’s the deadliest conflict in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war. The current war between Hezbollah and Israel has set the whole country ablaze. The provisional death toll on the Lebanese side stands at more than 2,300, with 11,000 wounded, while thousands more are missing. The violence of the Israeli strikes has also provoked a mass exodus of the population: some 1.2 million people already have been forced to leave their homes, or a fifth of the population. Our Lebanon correspondents Chloé Domat and Sophie Guignon report.

It all began the day after October 7, 2023, when Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese ally, opened a second front in northern Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza. For 10 months, clashes occurred almost daily, but remained contained along the border between the two countries. But everything accelerated in September, when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced the opening of a second front "in the north of Israel".

In mid-September, several thousand Hezbollah fighters across Lebanon were hit by pager explosions, followed by walkie-talkie blasts. These unprecedentedly sophisticated attacks were attributed to Israel and were the prelude to massive air strikes in the south of the country, in the eastern Bekaa Valley, and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated. But the escalation did not stop there. On October 1, Israel launched a “limited” ground operation in the south of the country.

Whatever they think of Hezbollah, the lives of all Lebanese have been turned upside down. Everyday life has come to a standstill, in a country that has already experienced so many wars and whose economy is on its knees, while the population has barely recovered from the devastating Beirut port blast of August 2020. This new conflict recalls past traumatic episodes: from the long 1975-1990 civil war to the 34-day conflict in the summer of 2006 between Hezbollah and Israel.

Our reporters Chloé Domat and Sophie Guignon went to meet Rania, a mother watching the bombardments from her balcony; Ali, a doctor at the public hospital; and Jaafar, a vegetable seller who has lost his home.