Tyre, Lebanon – On March 4, M. Saeed was at her home near the El-Bus intersection in Tyre, when Israel issued a forced evacuation threat for all of southern Lebanon.
She moved forward sheepishly, collecting her belongings and trying to wake up her sleeping relatives, when locals started firing their guns in the air to warn people to move away.
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With her husband, Yasser, their daughter, Samiha, and Samiha’s four-year-old daughter, she got into their Mercedes and drove to the port of Tyre, which she thought would be safe from Israeli attacks.
M Saeed described scenes of panic on the street. “Some women left their homes with their heads covered; others were not fully clothed. Older people were making their way on foot,” he said.
A car ride that usually takes only a few minutes took the family three hours. Once at the port, Yasser told his wife that the family should head north to the capital, Beirut, and stay with a friend, as they did when Israel escalated its attacks in September 2024, during what is called a “66-day intensification” in Lebanon.
“When we arrived in Beirut, I was still in my pajamas,” said Samiha on Sunday, who is now back in her home in Tire with her family.
‘Bombing may seem easier than displacement’
On March 2, Israel escalated its war on Lebanon for the second time in less than two years, wreaking havoc on large parts of the country.
Earlier that night, Hezbollah had responded to Israeli attacks for the first time in nearly 15 months by firing cross-border rockets after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on February 28, the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
In the coming days, Israel will issue a demand for the evacuation of approximately 14 percent of Lebanon. Areas Israel declared vulnerable to attacks included all of southern Lebanon, some villages in the eastern Bekaa Valley, and the entire southern suburbs of Beirut. Soon, 1.2 million people, or more than 20 percent of Lebanon’s population, were displaced.
Global rights group Human Rights Watch has said Israel’s displacement of civilians in Lebanon is a “potential war crime”, with experts stressing that “war is not a license to expel people from their land”.
When threats of forced evacuation came, Lebanon’s southern residents had to make a decision. They had to calculate the risks of potentially being killed in Israeli attacks against the struggle of relying on the goodwill of others or paying extortionate fees for temporary housing.
Some ran away; Others stayed.
Aya and her family decided to live in the al-Abbasih municipality, about 8 km (5 mi) from Tyre.
The recent graduate from the Islamic University in Tyre, who was displaced during the previous intensification in 2024, said she did not want to again go through the humiliation of being overcharged or disrespected by landlords.
“Living under bombardment seems easier than the trauma of displacement,” he told Al Jazeera via message.
Many Southerners say they are particularly attached to their land. Part of this may be due to various Israeli invasions over the years, as well as Israel’s two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000.
When Israel bombed Lebanon’s bridges to the south, isolating the region from the rest of the country once again became a real possibility.
“The most important reason (we decided to stay) is the fear… that people will be stuck outside the south for a long time after the war ends,” Aya said.
“And there’s a reason that may seem simple but it’s very real, (which is) our emotional attachment to our homes, to the South and to Tire in general. It’s not easy to leave a place that feels like home.”
Many displaced people are placed in vulnerable situations where they must decide between safety and financial expenses, such as renting an apartment. According to the World Bank, displaced populations “experience high rates of multidimensional poverty”.
After arriving in Beirut early last month, Yasser and M Saeed stayed only for a day or two before deciding to return home to Tyre. But once back, they were haunted by the constant sounds of war: the roar of jets, the whirring of drones, and ground-shaking explosions. They went back to Beirut the next day.
A few weeks later, on April 8, a ceasefire was announced between Iran and the United States. However, there was disagreement over the fate of Lebanon: Iran and Pakistan, the negotiator between Tehran and Washington, said it was included in the agreement; Israel and America said that is not the case.
‘They committed genocide’
Early that morning, Yasser and M Saeed packed their car and drove to Tyre. His host in Beirut tried to persuade him to stay an additional day to see if the ceasefire would hold, but the family was adamant that he wanted to return home.
They reached Tire at noon that day. Three hours later, Israel launched more than 100 strikes in less than 10 minutes, many of which hit densely populated areas of central Beirut, including the same area where Yasser and M. Saeed were living.
Later in the evening, Israel destroyed another building in central Beirut. It was the bloodiest day in Lebanon since September 2024, with more than 350 people killed and more than 1,000 injured.
On April 16, a ceasefire finally took effect in Lebanon after 46 days of Israeli bombardment and ground offensive in the south of the country.
But Israel was bombing southern Lebanon until the last moments. In Tire on Sunday, people debated whether the last attack occurred at 11:59 pm or at midnight.
Fifteen minutes after midnight that evening, Yasser sent Al Jazeera a video of dark brown smoke billowing from the site of the airstrike. Another 15 minutes later, he sent a voice note. His voice wavered slightly as he described the “massacre in Tyre”.
“They destroyed buildings; they destroyed the neighborhoods around us,” he said, naming streets the Israelis attacked near his home. “It has all been destroyed,” he said. “At the last moment, they committed a massacre, and now many people are injured.”
On Sunday, when Israel said its forces had been ordered to use “full force” against “threats” in Lebanon despite the ceasefire, Yasser stood on the balcony of his home.
He pointed a little more than 100 meters (about 110 yards) away. “They demolished five buildings over there,” he said. Then he turned and pointed in the opposite direction. “And over there, they shot down another one.”
By 17 April, six weeks of Israeli attacks had killed approximately 2,300 people in Lebanon.
