Beirut, Lebanon – Israel levelled a building in central Beirut, struck the southern suburbs, Dahiyeh, at least a dozen times and hit other areas in central Beirut on Tuesday, making what many hope to be the last day of the war also its most violent.
Three people were killed and 26 more wounded on Tuesday in the blast near Khatam Al Anbiyaa Mosque in Beirut’s Noweiry neighbourhood, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health, with the death toll expected to rise.
Traffic in Beirut was gridlocked as people attempted to flee to what they hoped were safe areas, as Israel bombed before Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a ceasefire deal had been agreed by his security cabinet.
The strikes on Beirut continued after Netanyahu’s speech.
Also fleeing were people near Basta, where a strike took place on Saturday and another occurred in nearby Noweiri on Tuesday. On Monday, many residents of Basta told Al Jazeera that people there had already fled.
But Israel is also launching violent attacks in Lebanon’s south and east, as well as in seemingly random parts of Beirut, and many people had decided to stay in Basta because they were not sure where else to go.
‘What I lived, I cannot forget’
Early Saturday morning, the date of the second attack on Basta, Khaled Kabbara and his wife Hanan were sound asleep in their bed when Israel attacked the buildings near their home in Basta Fawqa.
The 100-year-old home they live in was built by Hanan’s grandfather in a Beirut alley named after their family: el-Safa.
The Israeli strike blew the antique windows out of the wall and sent rubble and glass flying everywhere.
“All this landed on top of me,” Kabbara says, pointing at the windows lying next to pieces of wood ripped from wall, nails twisted and exposed, and a red tarbouche.
The dust-covered pillows lay not too far from an equally dusty printer that landed near their bed. Shards of glass and rubble were scattered over the floors.
Khaled ran to check on their two children. Luckily, both were unhurt. But the same cannot be said for Hanan’s relatives next door.
Two died and many other neighbours are in hospital.
Hanan is now staying at her sister’s place around 1.5km (one mile) away for now and is not sure if she’ll return home to the house she’s lived in her whole life.
“I’m 41 years old,” Hanan said, standing across from the house where three workers were starting the long job of repairs. “I was born here, grew up here; I got married here and had my children here.”
Her late mother also died here, just 11 days earlier she said, from a pancreatic issue.
“Her death took us by surprise,” she said. “But if she had been alive, the blast would’ve killed her because pieces of the house fell where she normally slept.”
Hanan carries deep pain. In addition to losing her mother and her two relatives next door, Israel has also killed some of her family in Gaza, where her father is from.
The trauma of the blast, she said, indicating the white hijab on her head, also led to her wearing a veil for the first time.
“I’m scared … I’m not sleeping,” she said. “I sleep a bit then jerk awake. What I lived I cannot forget.”
A couple of blocks from their home, her husband Khaled steps into a shop.
A group of men are exchanging stories of the strike: Dust everywhere, ambulance sirens ringing into the early morning sky.
One man says the strike was so powerful, he thought it was an earthquake and had to brace himself in a door frame.
Khaled said he heard the missiles fly overhead, mimicking their sound.
After the attack, he said, Hanan gathered the family’s valuables for safekeeping, but worrying about that paled next to the panic he felt during the few seconds between the strike and when he ran to check on his children.
Something like this, he said, makes one question everything. His eyes glittered with tears and the other men in the shop looked at him tenderly, waiting.
Steadying himself, he said his family’s safety takes precedence over anything else, before adding: “F*** money.”
‘Nobody knows anything’
The ceasefire comes as a reprieve for a tired Lebanese population. Netanyahu gave a speech announcing the deal, saying Israelis can return to their homes in the north. But he added that he would not hesitate to launch new attacks if he felt Hezbollah posed a threat.
Most of the 3,768 plus people Israel killed since October 2023 have died since Israel’s escalation and an estimated 1.2 million people have been displaced.
Even fleeing Israel’s bombings has not guaranteed safety, as displaced people have been targeted in several towns around Lebanon.
Many of the displaced people will try to go home after the war ends – if their homes are still standing.
In the meantime, residents told Al Jazeera, the people who have stayed in Basta either have nowhere else to go or have made a decided that it’s still safer than other areas of Lebanon.
Mohammad al-Sidani, 27, stood outside a mobile phone shop across the street from Saturday’s bombing site. He said he would only leave if he got a visa to join his wife in Germany.
“We’ve moved around so much already,” he said. “It’s better than Dahiyeh or Burj al-Barajneh here.”
Sidani was referring to Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the wanton destruction has been described by some experts as urbicide.
Then there is the south of Lebanon, where at least 37 villages have been partially or completely razed to the ground.
Even should a ceasefire come to pass, much of the war’s damage – to people and their homes – is already done. For those who will stay, they say they would rather die with their dignity than on the street.
Sitting in his shop a block away from the devastated street in Basta on Monday, Abou Ali, a 71-year-old cobbler, patiently worked on the insole of a boot.
“I don’t want to live going from area to area, I don’t have the means to do it,” he says. “I’ll die if I don’t work, I have to work.”
“In my opinion, I will say nowhere [is safe], Israel is always changing [targets]. Maybe it hits here or there or Achrafieh, or Sabra or the camps. Nobody knows anything.”
