In Lebanon, ‘misleading’ and sporadic Israeli evacuation orders instil fear

Beirut, Lebanon – Two-year-old Ayham Ali Mohammad sat on his grandfather’s lap eating a banana across the street from Rafik Hariri Hospital in Jnah, on Beirut’s southern periphery.

Two days earlier, on October 22, an Israeli air attack had hit the Syrian toddler’s home, burying him under the rubble and taking down multiple buildings around him.

He was trapped for an hour before locals managed to pull him out, digging through the wreckage with their bare hands.

He now wears the scars of the attack on his face. He has two black eyes. Scrapes line his forehead, cheeks, lips and chin.

Dressed in a brown tracksuit, he was typically fidgety for his age. But, in calm moments, he stared off into space. He did not speak as his grandfather told his story.

He and his father survived. But his mother and older brother, who were sleeping next to each other when the attack happened, did not. At least 18 people were killed in the attack, while about 60 were wounded.

“There was an evacuation warning for Ouzai [a nearby suburb] but then they hit here,” said 40-year-old Hassan Bou Kaseb from the blast site. He lives next to the destroyed buildings. The Israeli army had given no warning, he and other locals said.

Rescuers search for survivors after an Israeli air attack next to the Rafik Hariri Hospital in Beirut [Raghed Waked/Al Jazeera]

That same day, in Chiyah, about a 10-minute drive away, another building was reduced to rubble. But before that explosion, there was an evacuation warning.

Rana Nasserddine, who works in sales for a Dubai-based bathroom and tiles company, was at her office in the Emirati city when a relative shared the Israeli evacuation notice on the family group chat.

“I blacked out,” Nasserddine told Al Jazeera.

About 40 minutes later, a rocket struck the base of the building and brought it down.

“I ran out of the office crying and went outside to breathe,” she said. “Even now, describing what I felt brings tears to my eyes. I stood on the road for an hour, just trying to process it.”

Israeli fire that day destroyed the homes of Mohammad – the toddler – and Nasserddine, plus those of many others.

Evacuation warnings, when they are issued, might prevent the loss of life. But observers cast doubt that these alerts are issued in good faith.

“These evacuation orders are far from acting as a genuine call to protect civilians,” said a report by Beirut Urban Lab, an interdisciplinary research studio at the American University of Beirut.

“We read them as part of Israel’s strategy to manufacture consent for the incoming strikes, legitimising the bombings by claiming the presence of a so-called ‘terrorist’ threat.”

Israel’s Arabic-language spokesman for the military did not share a specific reason for the attack on Nasserddine’s building in a statement shared on the social media site X, other than to say they were in the vicinity of Hezbollah “interests” or “facilities”.

More than 3,000 people in Lebanon have been killed since the latest war between Hezbollah and Israel started on October 8, 2023. Deaths have accelerated since mid-September when Israel detonated electronic devices around the country, escalated air attacks on large swaths of it, and assassinated key Hezbollah figures.

In October, Lebanon’s south, the Bekaa Valley in the east, and Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh have been repeatedly bombarded.

Since September 27, the Israeli military has issued several evacuation warnings, ordering residents to flee their homes.

Sometimes these warnings apply to specific buildings, like Nasserddine’s. On other occasions, evacuation warnings are given for entire neighbourhoods, like in Lebanon’s fifth-largest city Tyre, or even the majority of a city and its suburbs, as was the case in Baalbek, home to more than 80,000 people and ancient Roman ruins.

In Beirut, the Israeli military has announced at least 99 strikes on 152 buildings between September 27 and October 24, 2023, according to the Beirut Urban Lab report.

Most evacuation orders in the capital have been sent in the late evening or early hours of the morning.

They are shared by the Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesman on X, usually in the form of maps with the targeted building or building clusters in red. Alerts have also been sent via text message and WhatsApp.

‘There isn’t safety’

Israel’s military claims evacuation orders are aimed at protecting Lebanon’s civilian population.

In reality, the evacuation orders do not always come. If they did, perhaps Ayham’s mother and brother might still be alive.

Sitting across from Rafik Hariri Hospital in Jnah, a 42-year-old Syrian man who requested anonymity trembled with emotion.

“Netanyahu, you criminal, get off our back,” he said through a surgical mask worn to protect himself from the dust, referring to the Israeli leader. “Leave us alone.”

He was at home with his wife and five daughters, aged six to 15, when the attack took place.

A dust-covered video game console in a bombed house next to Rafik Hariri Hospital [Raghed Waked/Al Jazeera]

They were close to the point of impact, but luckily no one from his immediate family was badly hurt.

The blast sucked the air from the living room, making it difficult to breathe, and they felt an intense pressure.

Everything was covered in dust. “I saw death with my eyes,” he said.

“Security is the most important thing,” he added. “Now, I’ll go back to Syria for my kids. I might die.”

But returning to Syria is filled with risk. He might be forcibly drafted, thrown in jail, or even killed, he explained. His family is now homeless and has pitched a tent by the Mediterranean Sea.

“If you have money you can flee. So who gets hit? The poor,” he said.

‘I feel broken beyond words’

Even when warnings arrive, people on the receiving end hardly find them humane, and neither do human rights groups.

“The warnings issued … were inadequate,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, said in a report published on October 10. “Our analysis shows that not only did the warnings issued by the Israeli military include misleading maps, but they were also issued at short notice – in one instance less than 30 minutes before strikes began – in the middle of the night, via social media, when many people would be asleep, offline or not following media reports.”

Like many in Lebanon trying to escape the horrors of Israeli bombing, Nasserddine’s family had evacuated days earlier due to the other attacks in the area.

The attack crushed her room with a balcony overlooking the city. It took her mother’s expensive sewing machine. And it seized the possibility of adding new memories to the old.

She remembers scattered scenes over the years: drinking coffee in her pajamas on her sister’s seventh-floor balcony, her mother chastising her aunt for smoking indoors.

“I can’t fully describe the feeling,” Nasserddine said. “In one moment, both my mum’s, my sister’s, and my home are all gone. How do you describe losing everything you love when you’re so far away? I feel broken beyond words.

“I cling to our memories and trust that the bond we share will endure.”