TYRE, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanon’s coastal southern city of Tyre — famed for its Roman ruins and white sandy beaches — is almost a ghost town.
Abandoned dogs roam vacant streets dotted with apartment buildings blasted by recent Israeli airstrikes. The ancient city largely emptied last week as Israel escalated its attacks against Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and issued sweeping evacuation orders for everywhere south of Lebanon’s Litani River.
In recent days, Israeli airstrikes have also destroyed most of the bridges over the Litani, severing wide swaths of the country — including Tyre — from the rest of Lebanon.
The renewed war between Israel and Hezbollah, against the backdrop of the wider war between Israel, the United States and Iran, has forced over 1 million people in Lebanon to flee. Many have crowded into relatives’ homes further north or set up camp in sprawling tents across Beirut’s rain-slick streets.
But several thousand residents linger here in Tyre, refusing to be expelled from their land.
Fishermen who say they can’t afford to abandon their work cast lines into the Mediterranean on Thursday, complaining that a strict curfew and scarcity of customers mean their daily catch yields a pittance.
“To avoid being displaced and suffering on the streets, we prefer to stay in our homes,” said 52-year-old fisherman Joseph Najm.
Families from nearby towns have crammed into Tyre’s Christian district in hopes that Israel decides to spare it. Hezbollah’s main base of support is in the Shiite community, and Christians in southern Lebanon have largely sought to remain outside of the conflict.
But across the rest of Tyre, particularly in parts where profound faith merges with Hezbollah’s militant politics, the roar of Israeli airstrikes has instilled a palpable sense of foreboding, fear — and defiance.
Residents here say their determination to stay put has only intensified as Israeli leaders hint at a long-term occupation modeled on the country’s devastating conquest of much of Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
“This is our land — where would we go? We won’t abandon our homes, even when they’re destroyed,” said Jihan Salama, 55, surveying all that remained of her family’s apartment: a giant pile of rubble with broken rebar jutting through chunks of concrete. An Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon cratered Salama’s multistory building on Tuesday.
The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when the Lebanese militant group launched a barrage of rockets across the border, two days after attacks by Israel and the U.S. on Iran sparked the ongoing Middle East war.
“We saw our belongings flying in the air, hundreds of meters in the air,” said Salama’s neighbor, Nader al-Ashqar, 60, who awoke to the thunderous clap of airstrikes that Tuesday and sprinted out of the building with his wife and two daughters as Israeli jets roared overhead.
“Everything is gone,” he said. “But God told me to stay here.”
Since Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire, at least three Israeli soldiers have died in ground combat and two Israeli civilians from rockets, including a man killed Thursday in the northern city of Nahariya.
In Lebanon, at least 1,116 people have been killed. That includes 42 medical workers, according to Lebanese authorities, among them paramedic Ahmed Ibrahim Deeb, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his motorcycle Tuesday while he was heading to treat patients near Tyre.
Salman Harb, the chief Hezbollah spokesperson in southern Lebanon, conducted a press tour of Tyre’s ruins Thursday, pointing out numerous ambulances damaged by Israeli fire. Israel has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances as cover for its militant activities, without offering evidence.
Combing through the flattened wasteland of cinder blocks on Thursday, Salama contemplated her options.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “we will set up tents and remain here.”
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Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Beirut contributed to this report.
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