Trapped between bombs and hope: Why Tyre has become Lebanon's last refuge

TYRE, Lebanon — Whatever choices Hassan Kareet had left were all bad.

Israeli bombardment, not to mention the threat of an invasion, meant Kareet couldn't stay in the village of Bazourieh, some 11 miles from Lebanon's border with Israel.

But finding a place to stay in a country where an estimated 1.3 million people are already displaced was impossibly difficult as the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies.

Shelters were full, and landlords were demanding — and getting — exorbitant rents and advance payments that Kareet, who owns a pet shop specializing in birds, simply couldn't afford.

Desperate, he brought his family to Tyre. It too was under Israeli evacuation orders, but at least there were places to stay for his wife and four children. And when things felt too crowded, they could escape here to Tyre's public park, where Kareet's 5-year-old son, Ali, was playing on a slide.

"We're scattered: some in one school, others in another shelter. I slept in the car," Kareet said, keeping one eye on Ali and another on the sky for the Israeli warplane he could hear prowling above.

Another advantage to being here: Tyre was close enough to Bazourieh that he could go and feed the 60 birds he owns.

"I can't release them. They wouldn't survive, and besides, we just got new hatchlings," he said. Yes, he was afraid of an Israeli attack, he added, but, "What should I do? I can't just let them die."

Tyre, the country's fifth-largest city and a normally bustling beach town with postcard-perfect views of the Mediterranean, has become a sanctuary of last resort even as the specter of a long-term Israeli occupation looms over south Lebanon.

In recent days, the Israeli military bombed bridges around Tyre, which lies 12 miles north of the Israeli border, almost cutting it off from the rest of the country.

But around 20,000 people — roughly 16,000 displaced from nearby towns and villages, along with 4,000 of the city's residents — remain, according to government officials. Before the war, the city population was 60,000.

"Where else can I go? The first night we left, we ended up sleeping on the seafront corniche in Sidon. I won't do that again," said Atallah, 52, sitting in the shade of a tree with his son, brother and sister-in-law.

He referred to the city of Sidon, 22 miles up the coast from Tyre and out of the area Israel says it will occupy, which extends around 20 miles from the border and encompasses a tenth of Lebanon's territory. Atallah and his family members did not give their full name for fear of harassment.

Although the Israeli military issued multiple bomb warnings that day for Tyre, including a strike that was less than a mile from the park, Atallah couldn't stay cooped up in the makeshift shelter in a nearby school, where his family was sharing a classroom with three other families.

"I would have stayed in my village, but I couldn't leave them," he said, gesturing toward his son, Mohammad, who has Down syndrome and was burying his face in Atallah's stomach as the warplane roared above.

Moments later, a bass thump sounded in the distance. Atallah walked to get a clearer view of the telltale plume of smoke indicating where a bomb or missile had hit; the whole way, Mohammad clung to Atallah's leg.

War returned to Lebanon on March 2 when the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah launched rockets on Israel to avenge the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed when Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28.

Hezbollah also was retaliating for near-daily Israeli attacks despite a ceasefire agreement reached 15 months ago.

Israel responded with a blistering assault that has stunned Lebanon with the scope of its destruction. So far, almost 1,100 have been killed and a quarter of the country's population displaced, authorities say.

This week, Israel said that its troops will invade a swath of south Lebanon to create a "defensive buffer zone," and that no residents could return until northern Israel was secure. The Israeli defense minister also said the military would apply the "Gaza model" to parts of south Lebanon, meaning that entire villages and towns would be razed and residents permanently uprooted.

The announcement raised fears about the long-term effects of the Israeli offensive.

"This is not a short shock. … The crisis is no longer only about where people sleep tonight, but how they will live, eat, and access healthcare in the weeks ahead," wrote Firass Abiad, who served as Lebanon's health minister until 2025, in a post on X on Tuesday.

"Resources that were already barely sufficient for the poorest will now have to stretch even further."

Randa, Atallah's sister-in-law, said Israel's announcement that it would invade had only increased her determination to stay. Though she was not part of Hezbollah, she, like many others interviewed in Tyre, supported the group.

"I left to another part of Lebanon the last war and I regretted it. I won't make the same mistake, and I trust the men who are fighting the Israelis," she said.

It wouldn't be the first time Alwan Charafeddine, Tyre's deputy mayor, experienced Israeli incursions.

The earliest one Charafeddine remembers was when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982; he was 9 years old, and the family escaped at 3 a.m. just as the bombs were falling near their home in Tyre. With a detached air, he counted off other bouts of displacement: in 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2006.

"Us and our kids, we're generations of war," he said, adding that even people who don't support Hezbollah would fight if the Israeli military invaded Tyre.

The municipality's main problem for the moment, Charafeddine said, was that only one crossing into Tyre survives, a narrow bridge on the old coastal road. Even now, aid organizations were reluctant to deliver into the city for fear of getting stuck, he said.

"If they take out the last bridge and nothing can come in, it's going to be a catastrophe," he said.

Most of the displaced are now sardined in the city's quaint Old Quarter, which lies on a promontory jutting out of Tyre's northernmost tip and is excluded from the evacuation order.

On an unseasonably warm afternoon, families flocked to the waterfront, sunning themselves before an azure-blue Mediterranean. Some tried to continue their routine, walking their dogs or jogging by the sea.

One person seemingly determined to ignore the war was Adnan Abdo, a Syrian Kurd who worked as a farmhand in Tyre. As the sea lapped around him, he balanced himself on a rock and cast a fishing line into the sea.

He was the victim of multiple conflicts, he said: Tensions against Kurds in Syria meant he didn't feel safe going home, and with even Lebanese having a hard time, there was little hope of him finding a place for his wife and two kids to stay elsewhere in Lebanon.

Besides, Israel was striking in areas well beyond Hezbollah's traditional areas of support, so nowhere was safe. His family was staying in one of Tyre's churches.

For now, he was enjoying the chance to fish. He had already caught several, and a tug of resistance on the line hinted he would get another.

Around him, people looked upward, searching for the warplane. But he kept his eyes on the sea.

"What can I do about that plane anyway? Nothing," Abdo said, before he drew in another fish.