Reportage
Tel Aviv drones over Beirut: No one is safe
High-tech Israeli drones monitor every movement, and almost nowhere is safe. Every night spent among the mazes of houses on the narrow streets is the same as another round in a game of Russian roulette.
In Beirut, people often look up to the sky – not looking for a sign from God, but for an Israeli drone. Night and day, there is an incessant hum above the Lebanese capital that reminds everyone about who is holding the fate of the inhabitants in this part of the world in their hands. Looking up is taking on a new sense of fatal resignation. This is war in the third millennium, which has left the war drums behind and makes a less somber noise to announce that death may come at any moment.
From the waterfront to Martyrs' Square, Beirut is pervaded by feverish activity, like an ant farm in an emergency. Motorcycles whizz by, ignoring every traffic signal, laden with rugs, foam mattresses and bags, all held together with rope.
Whole families are moving on two wheels, inevitably without helmets and showing every conceivable tableau: from mothers feeding infants with baby bottles to motorcycles almost toppling over as they carry gas cylinders or plastic water jugs. There’s no doubt: they need to hurry.
Late in the evening on Monday, a number of media outlets raised the alarm about the imminent start of the Israeli invasion, and the traffic turned insane. Some of the displaced have chosen to seek safety in Syria, and according to some estimates there are already 100,000 Lebanese who have taken refuge in the neighboring country. Others only changed neighborhoods in Beirut, moving to the waterfront or the main square, in front of the imposing Al Amin Mosque.
However, Monday’s airstrike in the Cola area, a short distance from the center, was a reminder that there are no truly safe neighborhoods in Beirut – except (at least for now) for Geitaoui, the Christian quarter in the city's east.
On the western side, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, because it’s clear that the Israelis know a lot more than one would expect. They’re relying heavily on drones, particularly the Hermes 900, a model manufactured by Haifa-based Elbit that has up to 30 hours of battery life and is equipped with the most advanced monitoring systems, from ultra-sensitive video cameras to different types of sensors and radar. The Hermes drones upload information directly to Tel Aviv’s satellites, and that’s how the operational command center in Israel keeps an eye on everything. When they’re sure of the intel, they issue the order to the air force and, depending on the importance of the target, an entire city block is razed to get Nasrallah, or a whole floor of a building is blown up targeting members of the Palestinian Popular Liberation Front, as in Cola on Monday.
The residents of Beirut, especially those in the Shiite neighborhoods, don’t need technical or military expertise to understand that every night spent among the mazes of houses on the narrow streets is the same as another round in a game of Russian roulette. As a result, they have gone out into the streets and are camping out anywhere they can: with carpets on the ground, hookahs and stoves in the corner, makeshift shelters made of rusty poles and cloth sheets.
In just 24 hours, they’ve completely changed the face of the Corniche neighborhood. A Christian taxi driver calls them “barbarians” and explains to us at length that the Israelis were right to take out Hezbollah's leader. Beyond the historic divisions among Lebanese society, this neighborhood, the waterfront emblem of extreme post-civil war neoliberalism, where big international hotel chains alternate with showrooms for luxury Italian furniture brands or famous fashion designers, and which houses both the yacht club with multi-million-dollar vessels and the American University of Beirut, is now undergoing a real transformation into a nomad camp.
From their elegant balconies of the tall mansions on the coast, wealthy Lebanese and foreigners who made it big in the Saudi- and U.S.-funded system are looking at the women in black hijabs sitting on the ground and the men talking close together in large groups, Arab-style, where it almost seems as if the more important the discussion, the closer one has to be. We often see someone raising their voice and pointing upward; then everyone raises their heads, and it is an uncanny sight to see dozens of people of all ages pointing to a spot in the sky where nothing is visible.
Tel Aviv's new drone models can fly at up to 9,000 feet, and even if they were visible, the skyscrapers all around conceal the horizon. On the other side, on the rocks below the promenade, many are catching small fish with very long rods, and some are swimming (only men though).
Along the streets of the less touristy and wealthy neighborhoods, there are countless yellow flags with Kalashnikovs and clenched-fisted arms, the Hezbollah insignia. On the walls are newly printed posters with photos of the newly fallen. One can barely squeeze through between double- and triple-parked cars, but no one cares. Everyone honks their horn and goes on their way. Halal butcher stores, shisha and kitchenware stores and lots of small grocery stores are open.
A young man approaches and asks us why we don’t have an escort. “All right, go ahead, but not in the alleys.” We are followed for a while, but we lose sight of them in the crowd. The tension can also be felt in these small gestures, and Hezbollah has already banned the press (even the Arab press) from entering the Danyeh neighborhood. Once in a while, a big new 4×4 with tinted windows clogs up the street, but no one complains. A short distance away, on the bigger streets, a few “Woman, Life, Freedom” signs remind us that not everyone supports Iran's ayatollahs.
On the other side of what used to be the “green line” during the civil war, the highway that cuts Beirut in half and separates the Christian and Muslim neighborhoods, the atmosphere is completely different. The flags are white with a red circle enclosing the cedar tree that is the symbol of Lebanon. Here the Christians can still live peacefully in their homes, not targeted by the Israeli air force for now.
It takes less than an hour to walk from one side of the city to the other, but these are still two separate worlds. Churches and mosques are like strategic outposts that mark the urban fabric, reminding you which clan is in charge of that area. At night, from the Rue d'Armenie in the Mar Mikhail neighborhood, you can see a neon cross in the distance towering over the city center. Next to it is the Al Amin Mosque, which is more beautiful and much larger, but the Maronites have erected a bell tower higher than the minaret, and when looking from the west one’s eyes will always be drawn to the cross.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/i-droni-di-tel-aviv-su-beirut-non-ci-sono-piu-luoghi-al-sicuro on 2024-10-01