Beirut today is a tale of two cities – the areas being bombed by Israel and those where life carries on nearly like normal.
It's a Saturday night in Beirut in early October, and at the outdoor bar of the Movenpick Hotel, on the city's waterfront, people gather for drinks and al-fresco dinner. The Mediterranean Sea glistens in the reflection of the moon, as cocktails, steaks and fresh seafood are served to the clientele, mainly foreigners or well-heeled Lebanese.
Across town, a 20-minute drive from this world of gins and tonic, a fierce war is raging. A few hours later, in the southern area of Dahiyeh, a night from hell begins.
Israeli jets and drones made about 30 strikes on Dahiyeh and surrounding areas, demolishing many buildings, creating fires that burned through the night and sending fear and chaos through the city.
Beirut today is a tale of two cities – the areas being bombed and those not being hit.
Rubble like Gaza
The areas being bombed are traumatised. Much of Dahiyeh has been reduced to rubble, beginning to look like Gaza.
After a year of Israeli attacks, Gaza is now effectively unliveable for the 2.3 million people trapped in the enclave. Many here in Lebanon fear that Beirut is about to begin the same process — a relentless bombing that will damage the city's infrastructure to the point that it is no longer habitable.
Medics who have been trying to rescue people since this war between Israel and Hezbollah escalated four weeks ago say that when they're searching for survivors of an air strike, they're coming across a large number of dead people.
"We look for people alive but mostly we find dead people," one paramedic told me this week. "Dead, dead, dead," he says, looking fatigued after a month of intensive bombing of Beirut.
The areas being targeted are usually Shia Muslim areas where many of the leaders of Hezbollah and its supporters live. Israeli air strikes have killed an estimated 25 of the militant group's key leaders.
These include Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader who towered over Hezbollah, Hashem Safieddine, long seen as a possible successor to Nasrallah, and Suhail Hussein Husseini, who had been in charge of weapons transfers from Hezbollah's patron and weapons supplier, Iran, to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
Across town
The devastation of Dahiyeh is plain for all to see. Frequently in the evenings the sounds of explosions in the area – following by the flashes and fires caused by bombing – can be heard and seen from the heavily-populated mountains overlooking the city.
Schools have been closed so they can be used for some of the estimated 1.2 million people who have been displaced by the war, and universities will begin online teaching shortly so that they too can be used as shelter for people seeking safety or whose homes have been destroyed.
Yet across town, it's a very different story. In a neighbourhood such as Achrafieh – a Christian area close to the city centre – life has been continuing as normally as possible. People walk their dogs in the evening, check out tomatoes in boxes outside corner stores and sit on footpaths having coffee.
One group of men sit together on park benches, fixated on a game of backgammon being played by two of them.
But the dichotomy in this city was seriously blurred this week when Israel hit two residential buildings in the heart of Beirut – in the neighbourhoods of Nweiri and Basta. Israeli media claimed the target was Hezbollah commander Wafiq Safa, who appeared to have not been killed. Instead, Israel killed at least 22 civilians and injured 117 others, leaving much of the area in rubble.
Our ABC team was having dinner at a pizza restaurant about a kilometre from the strikes. We could immediately see the change in demeanour of people in the area, suddenly trying to source videos of the strike. One young man was clearly panicked, trying to call members of his family: "That's just near my home," he said.
These latest strikes brought the war to the heart of Beirut and to Christian and Sunni neighbourhoods, until now largely spared.
In Beirut and many villages around the country, religious identities and political leanings can vary – literally – from one street to another. Often the allegiance of a neighbourhood can be gauged from the posters in the streets.
One street, for example, may have several posters of Hassan Nasrallah – and it's clearly a Shia street. And not all Shia Lebanese are Hezbollah supporters. A different street with Shia residents near a Hezbollah street may have posters of Musa Sadr – the legendary founder of Amal, which has had decades of rivalry with fellow-Shia group Hezbollah. (Sadr is known as “the vanished iman” – he has not been seen since he travelled to Libya in 1978.) And yet another street in the area may have posters of Sunni identity Saad Hariri – a one-time prime minister and the son of Rafic Hariri, also a former prime minister. Many Sunni Lebanese still admire Saad Hariri and fly posters of him in their streets.
In one of Beirut's Christian suburbs, Achfrafieh, Marwan Omeirat works in the upmarket supermarket Spinneys, enthusiastically offering customers samples of his international cheese selection.
No-one in this city is able to escape the war entirely, but Marwan says that he's trying to focus on coming to work each day and just doing his job.
Rather than people keeping away from shops, one of Spinneys' managers says that the number of customers has increased in recent weeks – he says people who have fled from areas being bombed want to come to a relatively safe area such as Achrafieh to do their shopping.
In another suburb, Clemenceau, parents and children sit in Lakkis Farm restaurant eating the produce grown by this up-market delicatessen. One large area is put aside for people who want to smoke shishas – and it was packed this week.
A constant hum on the streets
Beirut's two worlds was obvious upon leaving the restaurant – while inside are the sounds of children and families eating and drinking, the moment you walk out you hear the sound of Israeli drones overhead, the constant companion in Beirut these days. The cameras in these drones are using facial recognition and AI to try to spot Hezbollah commanders or fighters who can then be "eliminated."
All of this, of course, is not to say that these people appearing to be going about their lives as normal are not feeling the war. "The war is affecting everyone," says one professional Beirut woman. "But we are also trying to get on with our daily lives."
Almost as a point of determination, many restaurants and bars in normally thriving areas such as Gemayze are remaining open, but some nights there may be no-one or only one or two tables in them. Frequently, there are more staff than customers, but some Lebanese say they are determined that their country will not be shut down.
"People are going to work during the day but not going out much at night," says the woman. "There's a sense that you are safer not being out at night, so rather than go out to dinner people are going to the places of friends or relatives and being with them.
"Everyone – absolutely everyone – is watching the news on TV all the time, so people may go to someone else's place, watch the news and then maybe even stay there. People don't want to be out driving late at night."
And while there are some areas such as Dahiyeh which are devastated, and some such as Gemayze that appear normal, there are other parts of the city which show both the traumatised and the relatively normal.
Home away from bombing
One such place is the city's famous waterfront, the Corniche – one of Beirut's most famous landmarks that most tourists try to visit at least once.
Today, there are families eating ice-creams, children playing soccer and vendors selling balloons.
But as we walk along the promenade we come across tents with mattresses and blankets – many have made this their new home away from the bombing.
Likewise, as you drive around the city you see hundreds of people making doorways and footpaths their new homes. Martyrs' Square, next to the city's landmark Sunni Mohammad al Amin Mosque – or Blue Mosque — has become a pop-up refugee camp.
This week, parents were trying to set up sheets to provide some shade for their children from the punishing sun. These are clearly people in trouble – despite several visits to the square this week I never saw any of the children eating or drinking.
Even before this war started, Beirut was doing it tough. When I first came to Beirut some 15 years ago, it was a thriving, vibrant city – full of energy, cafes, restaurants, nightclubs and tourists. The fusion of Phoenician, French and Arab history, language and culture gives it a charm that makes it an enchanting Arab capital.
Today, it's feeling the stress of several crises – the Syrian war and the huge number of refugees who arrived; COVID, which devastated the economy; the port explosion, which caused massive physical and psychological damage.
And now it's being bombed by the most powerful military in the Middle East, Israel.
Long shadow of war
These are early days in this war between Israel and Hezbollah. Many Lebanese I've spoken to say they expect it could be long – perhaps a year, perhaps longer.
And despite the many parts of the country trying to carry on with as much normalcy as possible, all Lebanese will feel consequences either now or in future.
For example, this week Israel bombed the main water distribution channel from the Litani River to the Qasmieh irrigation project in southern Lebanon. This will have serious consequences for Lebanese people for a considerable time – southern Lebanon, along with the Bekaa Valley, is one of the country's food bowls, and this will damage a significant supply of food.
The channel that was bombed irrigates swathes of agricultural land in southern Lebanon, particularly tomatoes, cabbage, cucumber, lettuce, eggplant, bananas, citrus fruit and bananas. Israel and Lebanon have long fought over access to water.
The president of the Litani River Authority, Sami Alawiyeh, says this attack is a violation of international humanitarian law because water from the Litani River can no longer be drawn in southern Lebanon, which "reignites suspicions about the enemy's intentions regarding Lebanon's water resources."
He says the authority has taken temporary measures to divert the water to prevent flooding of agricultural land and roads and will take the necessary steps to restart the irrigation project as soon as possible.
The damage to infrastructure will affect all Lebanese, even though who are not feeling the day to day trauma of bombing.
'We have two enemies'
At the heart of this conflict in Lebanon is Hezbollah – and just as this city is divided into areas being bombed and those not being bombed, so is it divided between people who support Hezbollah and those who do not.
This week, I went into a supermarket in a Christian part of Beirut. Behind the counter were two Lebanese university students in their early 20s, earning money to support their studies.
The woman was contemptuous of Hezbollah. "We don't want them here," she said.
Before this latest war broke out, Hezbollah supporters – or identifiably Shia people dressed in accordance with Sharia – may have entered an area or shop like this one with little acknowledgement.
But the ever-present Israeli drones are searching for Hezbollah leaders and fighters, so at the moment in Beirut, people in non-Hezbollah areas do not want someone from the group near them in case it makes them a target for a strike.
I ask the two university students what would happen if people from Hezbollah came into this area. "They would not come here," the woman says. "They know we don't want them, particularly at the moment. We would make them leave."
The young man says he hopes the Israeli army will be able to destroy Hezbollah's weapons. "They have too many guns," he says. "If they have fewer guns they will have less power."
So, is he supporting Israel's military operation? "No, we don't support Israel, we don't trust Israel, and we don't like to see the number of civilians that Israel is killing but those of us who do not support Hezbollah are pleased to see them losing some military power."
Speaking to people around Beirut you quickly realise that given the complexities of Lebanese politics the views that people have of the current war are not straightforward.
At a small vegetable shop, the owner tells me that Hezbollah has "about 50 per cent" support among Lebanese.
Another man – a manager of a department store – tells me that he, too, believes Hezbollah is a malign element in Lebanese politics.
"We have two enemies," he says. "One is Hezbollah and one is Israel. After the long history between Israel and Lebanon, we do not trust Israel. But Hezbollah is also not good for this country."
An Australian living in Beirut told me that among the security staff working at the front gate of his apartment complex, there are people from both the Shia and Sunni traditions of Islam.
The Shia staff, he said, were devastated at the recent killing by Israel of Hassan Nasrallah. One of the Sunni guards, in contrast, quietly told the Australian that he was pleased that Nasrallah had been killed — but that he needed to pretend in front of the Shia staff that he was upset.
The Sunni guard observed that Hezbollah was believed to be behind the 2005 killing of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, so on this occasion he had little mercy that a Hezbollah chief had been killed.
The harsh reality
It is these layers upon layers that make this place a matrix of political, religious and historical complications. Hatreds and feuds build up over decades, often repressed for the sake of daily functioning, but are never too far from the surface.
A time like now – when the country is under attack – can give expression to many of these animosities and divisions.
Lebanese politics are hugely complicated. Alliances can be made and abandoned quickly. On top of this, global conflicts have often been played out here through proxies. Hezbollah, for example, is funded and armed by Iran. Israel has also had its alliances inside Lebanon. In 1982, Israel’s proxy the Phalangists, a Lebanese Christian militia, entered two Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut – Sabra and Shatila – and over a period of 43 hours massacred as many as 3,500 people.
When it comes to the reality today, the highly quality of the intelligence that Israel has had in recent weeks leading to the location and assassination of Hezbollah leaders suggests that Israel has some strategically-placed informants inside or close to Hezbollah.
While much of Israel’s assassination campaign has clearly relied on technology – location through phones, facial recognition by drones and so on – it’s difficult to believe that there is not a significant degree of human intelligence also involved.
Since the exploding walkie-talkies and pagers, senior Hezbollah figures are believed to have been reluctant to use phones. Yet, somehow, Israel has still been able to locate and kill them.
With all these complexities in mind, the harsh reality is this: there is a war going on inside Lebanon at the moment but Lebanon, as such, is not at war.
The Israeli army has invaded, and it is only Hezbollah putting up any military resistance. Hezbollah fighters have rushed to the south of the country to fight the Israeli army, while Lebanese soldiers stand watching the traffic in the main streets of Beirut. They are not firing any shots at Israeli soldiers.
For the moment, this new war in Lebanon is confined to certain parts of the country.
But all Lebanese – whether they are still able to walk their dogs and sit on the footpath and play backgammon or whether their areas are being bombed – are hoping that this war will be over quickly.
Among all the divisions, one sentiment flows through most parts of this society: after the brutal civil war from 1975 to 1990, most Lebanese do not want to go through that horror again.
Credits
Words: John Lyons in Beirut
Visuals: John Lyons, Eri Tlozek, AP, Reuters
Editor: Leigh Tonkin and Catherine Taylor
