Chaos and destruction as Israel strikes deep into the Lebanon Valley

At the wheel of an ambulance, Samir El Chekieh drives with sirens blaring throughout the newest Israeli air assault in El Karak, within the Bekaa Valley, jap Lebanon.

The 32-year-old firefighter and paramedic from the Lebanese Civil Defense Force (CDF) slept only some hours final night time. It’s now mid-afternoon and he hasn’t had breakfast but.

Since the escalation of the battle between Israel and the Shia Muslim Hezbollah, the women and men of the CDF don’t relaxation a lot and put together each day for a mass casualty incident.

This article accommodates graphic descriptions

It’s fully totally different from the final battle with Israel in 2006, Samir says. “We haven’t had the sort of airstrike. Recently a hearth station and a church within the south have been hit, and our humanitarian colleagues have been killed.”

CDF operators say civilians, together with ladies and youngsters, are more and more among the many lifeless and injured once they attend a name.

The battle between Israel and Hezbollah is more and more spreading all through Lebanon.

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

Israel says it targets solely Hezbollah fighters, weapons and infrastructure. Since its marketing campaign in opposition to the militant group intensified, Israel estimates it has destroyed two-thirds of Hezbollah’s stockpile of rockets and missiles.

But Hezbollah continues to fireside rockets in opposition to Israel each day.

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

During that interval, the quantity and frequency of strikes within the space elevated considerably.

On October 28 there have been greater than 100 Israeli assaults and within the final week alone 160 individuals have been killed within the Bekaa, in response to official knowledge. In its figures the Lebanese authorities doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Samir and his males arrive within the Shiite village of El Karak and discover chaos and destruction: the air is thick with smoke and mud.

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

A girl in a chador sits on the sidewalk begging to be allowed into the smoking ruins of an condo constructing, however the males argue along with her about staying the place she is. It’s too harmful, a second Israeli air assault may come.

The first physique they discover is that of a person, thrown to the bottom by the explosion.

There are survivors underneath the crushed flooring of the residences and Samir results in the rubble. He does not put on protecting plastic gloves as a result of the fireplace nonetheless rages inside, so when he finds a toddler he can really feel the shattered bones beneath his fingertips. As he fastidiously retrieves the child, he realizes that it is just half the physique.

“The first sufferer I discovered was a toddler. I do not know if it is a woman or a boy,” he tells me later. “I’m sorry to have to elucidate this. But it goes from the abdomen up, from the abdomen down there may be nothing.”

In the previous, CDF crews have acquired calls telling them to evacuate a web site they have been frequenting. They assume they’re from the Israelis. No such name comes at this time, so for an hour Samir and the others dig deeper into the ruins.

They finally discover a 10-year-old woman alive. She advised rescuers that her eight-month-old brother, Mohammed, was subsequent to her.

“After that, we began listening to the screams of a small youngster,” says Samir.

Through a small crack within the rubble they spot the trapped boy, who tries to maneuver his legs, his onesie and a single blue sock seen to the rescue group. They fastidiously take away the particles round him and he’s gently cradled in Samir’s palms and carried to security. Mohammed is now being handled in Iraq for the pinnacle wound he suffered, his household says.

The CDF works throughout Lebanon’s sectarian divisions. He does not discriminate, says Samir, who’s Christian and is the pinnacle of operations at Zahle station, a predominantly Christian city dominated by a statue of the Virgin Mary, which rises 54 meters above a hill.

“We do not ask the intercourse of the sufferer. We do not ask if it is black or white. We do not ask if he’s Christian or Muslim. We are humanitarians,” says Samir.

The UN estimates that each day in October not less than one youngster was killed and 10 have been injured in Israeli assaults. These losses, together with these of their colleagues killed within the strikes, are taking a toll on Samir and his males.

Nearly 24 hours after leaving the El Karak web site, a second Israeli assault collapsed the remainder of the condo constructing.

In the early evenings, Hezbollah once more fires rockets from close by hills, focusing on Israel. A salvo of not less than six bullets causes a hearth close to Zahle.

In the town of Khodor, the Hezbollah flag is planted on the ruins of one of many many buildings razed by Israeli bombs. The youngsters’s toys are organized on the base. A big purple Shiite flag flies close by – it is nearly the one sound within the largely deserted metropolis.

With his head bandaged, Jawad Hamzeh accompanies me among the many rubble of his home.

His three daughters died within the assault, together with 24-year-old Nada who was pregnant. She is holding the legislation books of one other daughter, who 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.

Hezbollah, supported by Iran, started attacking Israel on October 8, 2023 in solidarity with its ally Hamas, which 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 chief Hassan Nassrallah and adopted up with a floor invasion.

Hezbollah is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, however it’s greater than a militant group. It is Lebanon’s strongest political power and a social motion that serves as a bulwark for Lebanon’s Shia communities which have lengthy been discriminated in opposition to different sects within the nation.

Tens of 1000’s of Israelis have been displaced by the year-long battle. By attacking Hezbollah on a number of fronts, Israel hopes to degrade the group and permit its individuals to return dwelling.

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

On October 30, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order within the Bekaa city of Baalbek, which the UN described as “the most important pressured motion Lebanon has skilled in a single day” because the battle started. About 150,000 individuals got only some hours to flee one other Israeli assault.

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

“No terrorists or dangerous individuals lived right here,” he says. “Everyone who lived right here was a great particular person.” He says it housed households who fled Beirut in 1982 throughout the nation’s civil battle, together with his personal. “We have been born right here and we lived right here, and we’ll keep and we is not going to depart,” he says.

As I depart, males with pickaxes and shovels slowly advance by means of the rubble and Hussein prepares to pitch a tent over what stays of his home.

Outside the town, at Dar Al Amal hospital, the wounded are recovering from Baalbek’s deadliest day. According to the native governor, of the 63 individuals killed, two-thirds have been ladies and youngsters. Israel says it has struck 110 Hezbollah-linked targets.

In a naked room, stuffed solely with screams, the small hand of Selin, a three-year-old woman, seeks consolation. But there isn’t a one there. He has burns to his face, a fractured leg and wounds to his groin and facet. Her mom, father, two sisters and brother have been all killed within the Israeli airstrike which left her damaged and alone.

Across the hall within the intensive care unit, two-year-old Kayan Smeha has a fractured cranium. His mom, Najat, 24, kisses him gently on the cheek and rocks him to calm him.

“He’s nonetheless panicking,” he tells me. “And he is in all probability reenacting the scene like I’m doing. I can deal with it, however he’s small, he cannot.

Tears roll down her cheek, however she is defiant.

“I’m crying as a result of I’m scared for my child. But in the event that they suppose they will break us they’re improper. If I needed to, I might sacrifice my son and my husband, my father, my mom, my sister,” says Najat.

“The dying of a beloved one is tough, however no more durable than humiliation. And we’ll preserve our religion and our traditions till we die.”

At the small CDF station within the village of Ferzoul, amongst orchards and vineyards, the solar rises after a chilly night time. The seasonal temperature right here is dropping and most shelters for Lebanon’s displaced individuals are full.

Samir arrives and I ask him how he offers with what he noticed.

“Some pictures are caught in our heads,” he says, including that they’ll by no means go away.

He leans closely on his religion.

“When you may preserve one (particular person) alive, that will provide you with the energy to hold on,” he says.

“And this can be a energy that’s given to us by God and we’ll proceed to do our work. Even if we have been instantly focused, for instance right here in Lebanon, God will preserve us protected and we think about God and He will preserve us protected.”