Israel – Hezbollah | “You don’t know when they will bomb you”: the paradise Mediterranean town in the middle of the conflict in Lebanon where only 100 inhabitants remain

“Why, why us?” Milad Eid shouts.

His anguish is evident on the phone line.

An hour earlier, he had been putting out a fire in a house hit by an Israeli missile. While she was there, a bomb hit another building.

Their village, Alma al-Shaab, is located in southern Lebanon, just over a kilometer from the Israeli border.

Since October of last year, has been caught in cross-border fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim organization, which is politically influential in the region and controls the most powerful armed force in Lebanon.

At least 800 residents have fled the village and now only about 100 remain, authorities report.

“No one knows why they are attacking our houses,” says Eid. “It’s not our war.”

The Mediterranean coast of Lebanon is dotted with picturesque cities and towns, where bougainvilleas fall on winding streets.

Alma al-Shaab, its residents say, is the most picturesque of all.

Is one of the few Christian towns within southern Lebanese, a predominantly Shiite Muslim region. Alma al-Shaab’s position on a hill offers majestic views of the countryside and the sea can be seen in the distance.

It is also clearly visible from northern Israel.

This proximity to the border has caused it to be heavily attacked by Israeli forces during the last nine months.

A day after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Hezbollah and its allies fired waves of rockets from Lebanon towards a disputed area along the border in an apparent show of support for the armed group.

Israel retaliated attacking with drones and both sides have since dramatically escalated the scale and intensity of attacks across the Israel-Lebanon border.

At the end of May, Alma al-Shaab had been attacked 188 times by Israeli forces, according to the Beirut Urban Lab, a research center that uses data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled).

Many other villages in southern Lebanon have also been bombed.

The Israeli military says it is targeting Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure and retaliating against attacks on Israeli army bases in northern Israel.

But some senior Lebanese officials have accused him of implementing scorched earth tactics. to make the entire area uninhabitable.

Villagers the BBC spoke to were reluctant to discuss whether Hezbollah or other armed groups were using Alma al-Shaab to attack Israel.

One suggested that The locals had tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent the fighters from using their land.

There have been no deaths in Alma al-Shaab.

But so far, the Israeli bombing has completely destroyed 10 houses, damaged another 120 and hit the main water tank of the city, according to Deputy Mayor William Haddad.

About 12 square kilometers of agricultural and forest land have been burned, he adds.

There are normally 900 people in Alma al-Shaab, and around 1,500 in summer, when emigrants return to spend time in his ancestral village.

Now there are only about 100 left, says Haddad, and there are no children. The memory of past conflicts hangs heavily in the air.

People remember the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the subsequent occupation of the south until 2000, the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and countless skirmishes.

“Probably 90% of the people of Alma al-Shaab left straight away one day (after October 8) because they don’t want to experience what they experienced in 2006,” Haddad says.

Maria Shaya, 31, talks about a childhood of attacks and explosions, with a constant fear of violence in his house. She left at 18 to study in Beirut.

“I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t conflict.”

Can remember in detail the sound of bombs, drones and fighter planes. But during visits home in recent years, “my brain chooses not to listen to it,” he says.

Since the resurgence of fighting last year, he has not visited his father, who refuses to leave the village.

It is a painful reality, at odds with their pride in the place.

“I love Alma,” he says. “The air there smells different. It’s very green and lush, and you can walk around and pick things from the trees to eat.”

Spending time with his grandparents and cousins ​​under the lemon trees is now a distant memory.

She, like hundreds of others, He doesn’t know when they will be able to return.

“We don’t want to be in a war,” he says. “I just miss coming home.”

“What happened in 2006 was over in 30 or 33 days,” Haddad says. “Now We’ve been there for about seven months and this continues.. “No one knows what the limits are.”

Since October 7, Israel has launched more than 5,300 attacks in Lebanon, according to the Beirut Urban Lab. For its part, Hezbollah and its allied groups They have attacked Israel about 1,200 times, they report.

The Israel Defense Forces reported on June 6 that shots had been fired approximately 4,850 missiles against Israel from Lebanese territory. In early April, they noted that Israeli forces had attacked more than 4,300 “Hezbollah targets” in Lebanon.

Both sides say that They only target military targets, but both Lebanese and Israeli civilians have been severely affected by the fighting.

According to UN figures from the end of May, at least 88 civilians have been killed in Lebanon and more than 93,000 have been displaced.

Across the border, Israeli media report that 10 civilians have been killed and some 60,000 displaced.

Violence is taking a toll mental, physical and economic toll on the residents of Alma al-Shaab, most of whom have fled to cities such as Beirut and Sidon.

Those who have a second home or family to stay with are lucky, says the mayor. Others have had to rent houses, often living together with two or three other families.

Many say that income has dried up and children can’t go to school.

Some residents insist they will stay, no matter what.

Milad Eid is one of them. “You don’t know when they will bomb you or when the next attack will be,” he says.

But if he leaves, fears “facing the same problem as the Palestinians when they left their country.”

Eid refers to what Palestinians know as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

On May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence and in a war that began the next day until 750,000 Palestinians who had lived in that land fled or were expelled from their homes.

Israel has not allowed them or their descendants to return.

“They became refugees and, after 70 or 75 years old, they continue crying for their country, their towns and their homes“, it states.

When it comes to the Lebanon-Israel border today, most international observers have stopped short of calling the situation an all-out war.

But those who live there suffer it every day.