Chaos and destruction as Israel strikes deep in Lebanon’s valley

On the wheel of an ambulance, Samir El Chekieh drives with sirens wailing to the most recent Israeli air strike in El Karak within the Bekaa Valley, jap Lebanon.

The 32-year-old firefighter and paramedic with the Lebanese Civil Protection Power (CDF) solely received a number of hours’ sleep final night time. It’s now the center of the afternoon and he nonetheless hasn’t had breakfast.

For the reason that escalation of the struggle between Israel and the Shia Muslim Hezbollah, the women and men of the CDF see little relaxation, and brace themselves for a mass casualty incident day-after-day.

This text accommodates graphic descriptions

It’s starkly completely different from the final struggle with Israel in 2006, Samir says. “We didn’t have those kind of air strikes. Recently, a fire station was hit, and a church in the south, and our humanitarian colleagues have been killed.”

CDF staff say civilians, together with ladies and kids, are more and more among the many lifeless and injured after they attend a name out.

The struggle between Israel and Hezbollah is spreading deeper and wider throughout Lebanon.

An intense bombing marketing campaign has broadened far past the nation’s southern border villages and the capital Beirut, to cities within the fertile Bekaa and the historic metropolis of Baalbek, principally Shia areas, the place Hezbollah was based. The port cities of Sidon and Tyre have additionally seen a rise in assaults.

Israel says it is just focusing on Hezbollah fighters, weapons and infrastructure. Since its marketing campaign towards the militant group escalated, Israel estimates it has destroyed two-thirds of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile stockpile.

However Hezbollah continues to be firing rockets each day in the direction of Israel.

The BBC spent two weeks with Civil Protection Power crews within the Bekaa Valley, which stretches eastwards to the border with Syria. Permission from Hezbollah was required to go to the scene of Israeli assaults.

In that point, the quantity and frequency of strikes within the space dramatically elevated.

On 28 October, there have been greater than 100 Israeli strikes, and up to now week alone 160 folks have been killed within the Bekaa, based on official figures. The Lebanese authorities doesn’t distinguish between fighters and civilians in its figures.

Samir and his males arrive within the Shia village of El Karak to seek out chaos and destruction – the air is thick with smoke and mud.

Earlier at their station within the close by metropolis of Zahle, that they had heard a robust explosion – and from their balcony seen a plume of smoke within the distance. They jumped into their hearth vans and ambulances and headed straight there.

A lady in chador sits on the pavement begging to be let into the smoking ruins of an house block, however males motive along with her to remain put. It’s too harmful, a second Israeli air strike may very well be coming.

The primary physique they discover is of a person, blown throughout the bottom by the explosion.

There are survivors beneath the pancaked flooring of the residences and Samir goes deep within the rubble. He’s not carrying plastic protecting gloves as hearth continues to be blazing inside, so when he finds a baby, he can really feel shattered bones beneath his fingertips. As he fastidiously retrieves the kid, he realises it is just half a physique.

“The first victim I found was a child. I don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy,” he tells me afterwards. “Sorry to explain that. But it’s from the stomach and up – from stomach and down there is nothing.”

Up to now, the CDF crew have obtained cellphone calls telling them to evacuate a website they’re attending. They assume they’re from the Israelis. No such name comes on today, so for an hour Samir and others dig deeper into the wreck.

Ultimately they discover a 10-year-old woman alive. She tells the rescuers that her eight-month-old brother, Mohammed, was subsequent to her.

“After that, we started hearing the screaming of a small child,” Samir says.

By a small crevice within the rubble they spot the trapped boy, attempting to maneuver his legs, his babygrow and a single blue sock seen to the rescue crew. They painstakingly take away the particles round him and he’s gently cradled in Samir’s arms and dropped at security. Mohammed is now being handled in Iraq for the pinnacle damage he suffered, his household says.

The CDF works throughout Lebanon’s sectarian divide. It doesn’t discriminate, says Samir, who’s Christian and is the pinnacle of operations on the station in Zahle – a predominantly Christian city, dominated by a statue of the Virgin Mary, which rises 54m above a hilltop.

“We don’t ask the sex of the victim. We don’t ask if he’s black, white. We don’t ask if he’s Christian or Muslim. We are humanitarians,” Samir says.

The UN estimates that day-after-day in October at the very least one little one was killed and 10 have been injured in Israeli assaults. These losses, mixed with these of their colleagues killed in strikes, are taking their toll on Samir and his males.

Virtually 24 hours after they left the El Karak website, a second Israeli assault introduced down the remainder of the house constructing.

Within the early evenings, Hezbollah nonetheless fires rockets from close by hillsides, focusing on Israel. One salvo of at the very least six projectiles causes a brush hearth close to Zahle.

Within the city of Khodor, the Hezbollah flag is planted on the ruins of one of many many buildings which have been flattened by Israeli bombs. Youngsters’s toys have been organized at its base. A big crimson Shia flag flaps within the wind close by – it’s virtually the one sound within the largely deserted city.

With a bandaged head, Jawad Hamzeh takes me via the rubble of his residence.

His three daughters died within the assault, together with 24-year-old Nada who was pregnant. He holds up one other daughter’s legislation books, she was finding out to be a lawyer.

There have been no militants right here, he says. “Where are the missiles, do you see them?” he asks.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah started attacking Israel on 8 October 2023 in solidarity with its ally Hamas, which had carried out a devastating assault on Israel the day earlier than. Months of cross-border exchanges adopted, after which, in late September this 12 months, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nassrallah, and adopted that with a floor invasion.

Hezbollah is dedicated to Israel’s destruction, however it’s greater than a militant group. It’s the strongest political drive in Lebanon and a social motion which serves as a bulwark for Lebanon’s long-discriminated Shia communities towards different sects within the nation.

Tens of hundreds of Israelis have been displaced by the year-long struggle. By attacking Hezbollah on a number of fronts, Israel hopes to degrade the group and let its folks return residence.

Regardless of US-led ceasefire talks, neither facet seems prepared to again down.

On 30 October, the Israeli army issued an evacuation order within the Bekaa metropolis of Baalbek, which the UN described because the “largest forced movement Lebanon has experienced in a single day” because the begin of the battle. As many as 150,000 folks got solely hours to flee one other Israeli assault.

There, not removed from the magnificent Roman ruins with its towering temple of Bacchus, I met Hussein Nassereldine, 42, whose residence had been destroyed in an Israeli strike the night time earlier than.

“No terrorist or bad person lived here,” he says. “All who lived here were decent people.” He says it was residence to households who had fled Beirut in 1982 in the course of the nation’s civil struggle, together with his personal. “We were born here and lived here, and we will stay and won’t leave here,” he says.

As I depart, males with pickaxes and shovels are making gradual progress within the rubble and Hussein prepares to erect a tent on what was left of his residence.

Exterior the town, on the Dar Al Amal hospital, the injured are recovering from Baalbek’s deadliest day. Of the 63 folks killed, two thirds of these have been ladies and kids based on the native governor. Israel says it struck 110 Hezbollah-linked targets.

In a naked room, stuffed solely with screams, three-year-old Selin’s tiny hand reaches out for consolation. However there’s no-one there. She has burns to her face, a fractured leg and wounds to her groin and facet. Her mom, father, two sisters and brother have been all killed within the Israeli air strike that left her damaged and alone.

Throughout the hall of the intensive care unit, two-year-old Kayan Smeha has a fractured cranium. His mom, Najat, 24, kisses him gently on his cheek and cradles him to quieten him.

“He is still panicking,” she tells me. “And he is probably re-running the scene as I am doing. I can handle it, but he is small, he can’t.”

Tears roll down her cheek, however she is defiant.

“I’m crying because I am afraid for my baby. But if they think they can break us they are mistaken. If I had to, I will sacrifice my son and my husband, my father, my mother, my sister,” Najat says.

“Death of loved ones is hard but not harder than getting humiliated. And we will hold on to our faith and to our traditions till death.”

On the small CDF station within the village of Ferzoul, between orchards and vineyards, the Solar comes up after a chilly night time. The seasonal temperature is dropping right here and most of Lebanon’s shelters for the displaced are full.

Samir arrives and I ask him how he copes with what he has seen.

“Some of the pictures are stuck in our head,” he says, including that they may by no means go away.

He leans closely on his religion.

“When you manage to keep one [person] alive, that will give you the strength to keep going,” he says.

“And this is a power that’s given from God and we’re going to still do our job. Even if we were directly targeted, we say here in Lebanon, God will keep us safe and we have faith in God and he will keep us safe.”