In Lebanon, life goes on even as the region teeters on the edge of all-out war

In the southern Beirut neighbourhood of Dahiyeh, businesses opened and traffic jams continued as normal, even next to the building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike last week that killed Fouad Shukur, the Hezbollah commander, and six other people.

Nearby, Saad Baydoun was surveying the damage to his shops that offered internet and sound systems.

“All of what I had was here; my house was here, and it was destroyed. My family and I were on the verge of dying, but God gave us a new life. Both of my shops were destroyed. My car was destroyed,” he said.

His wife and children were forced to move in with relatives in another neighbourhood of Beirut.

“For me, there is nothing left. And I say, thank God, at least I have sympathized with the people of Gaza by experiencing 1% of what they are living through,” Baydoun said.

Last week’s killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and Hezbollah commander, Shukur, in Beirut – both attributed to Israel – have raised tensions in the region.

Israel has been bracing for a retaliation from Iran and its allied militias.

Some residents of Dahiyeh, an area that’s home to Hezbollah’s headquarters and leadership, said they were moving to other parts of Beirut.

The neighbourhood was decimated during the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon as Israel targeted members of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah legislator Amin Sherri told The Associated Press that the Lebanese government has an emergency plan in case of all-out war breaks out, adding that the country had enough fuel and medicine to last between two and four months.

On Monday, caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad received 32 tons of medical equipment and medicine from the World Health Organization meant as preparedness for allot war.

Sherri said there was great uncertainty over Israel’s next moves.

At Beirut’s Bahman Hospital, which is adjacent to the building that was hit by last week’s airstrike, two patients from the more than 70 people wounded in the airstrike are still undergoing treatment.

One of them is Mohammed Fadlallah, who suffered a broken leg and lost his 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, while his older son is at another Beirut hospital undergoing treatment for burns.

“What are we compared to the people being annihilated in Palestine? The entire issue is a struggle between right and wrong,” he said from his hospital bed.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed the group will retaliate for the killing of Shukur, who as in charge of Hezbollah’s forces in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel as well as being a top official in the group’s missile program.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, but they have previously kept the conflict at a low level that had not escalated into full-on war.

Additional sources • AP