Israel's Attack On Beirut Lebanon Forces Zeina And Her Little Daughter To Evacuate To The Beach

The post-Israeli attack conditions south of Beirut, Lebanon/DAR UNICEF/Dar al Mussawir/Ramzi Haidar

JAKARTA - The repeated explosion in the southern suburbs of Beirut where Israel launched airstrikes this week has prompted Zeina Nazha and her young daughter to flee on the city's coast to seek safety from the war in Lebanon.

He and several other people from the suburbs, known as Israel's enemy Dahiyeh, Hezbollah, who are Iran-backed sleeps with blankets under the open sky or in tents and other temporary shelters without a safer place to go.

An increase in Israeli military operations in Lebanon over the past two weeks has left one million people from their homes in the south, in Beirut and in the Bekaa valley in the east, according to the Lebanese government.

Israel says military operations are needed to keep its northern territory safe from Hezbollah's rocket attacks and allow thousands of its citizens to return home.

There was a bombing in the al-Salem neighborhood. We stayed for a while there and my family fled," Nazha said.

"The situation we are in is very difficult, many people are dying," he added.

He and his daughter spend the night sleeping in a corniche, beachfront streets around Beirut's peaceful center are centers of city life, filled with families walking around or sitting and eating.

Governments and private/amal agencies have established many shelters in schools and other facilities to accommodate people who have lost their homes due to fighting.

But Nazha said everything she visited was full.

Nearby, Mohamed Terkmene, a Syrian man living in Lebanon who is also a refugee due to the conflict, said he had slept on the beach for four days.

He said soldiers came to tell him and his neighbors to evacuate their Dahiyeh house.

"We can't sleep and don't know how long we will stay here. A month, two months, a week or two, until this war is over," he said.