00:00Live to Beirut, talk to our reporter Olivia Bezo who joins us from there.
00:04Olivia, first of all then, bring us up to date on the latest that you're hearing from those attacks,
00:08any other attacks that there have been.
00:14Hi Stuart, well that's right, the southern suburbs of Beirut continue to be under heavy and consistent bombardment.
00:22I could hear the loud thud of raids and explosions overnight.
00:26Now the IDF have said that they were targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and personnel,
00:31but they've consistently used these allegations in order to justify attacks on these southern suburbs of Beirut
00:39that are already completely destroyed and where hundreds of thousands of people have already been displaced.
00:45Many of these people do not know where to go.
00:47Essentially, if you don't have any friends or family you can stay with, you are in big trouble.
00:52Over 1.2 million people have been displaced across the country according to the UN.
01:00And there is definitely a lot of sectarian tensions that are also starting to emerge from this displacement.
01:09A lot of those who are being displaced are Shia.
01:11A lot of them are moving to non-Shia neighbourhoods and areas in the country,
01:15especially Christian neighbourhoods that are considered to be safer.
01:18But a lot of people are nervous about hosting people who've been displaced
01:21because they're scared that their buildings and their neighbourhoods will then be targeted by Hezbollah.
01:28Now a lot of the people I've been speaking to here are completely exhausted.
01:32Remember, these people have survived a port explosion, a pandemic, a total economic collapse.
01:38And now this conflict and the fear that these sectarian wounds are once again being ripped apart.
01:46Olivia, it comes, of course, as Israel continues to push into what seems to be a larger and larger buffer
01:52zone
01:52in the south of Lebanon as well.
01:57Yes, that's right, Stuart.
01:58Many areas in the south continue to be under consistent and heavy bombardment.
02:05And on Tuesday, Israel's defence minister reiterated that villages in southern Lebanon
02:11near the border with Israel will be completely destroyed.
02:13He vowed to inflict Gaza-like destruction.
02:17He also once again reiterated that the hundreds of thousands of people
02:20who've been displaced from these villages will not be able to return
02:24until Israelis in the north of the country feel safe.
02:28But those terms are very vague.
02:29And many Lebanese that we've speaking to are terrified that these temporary evacuation orders
02:35will become permanent.
02:37These fears are being reinforced by the fact that bridges across the Litani River
02:42have been under heavy bombardment.
02:44This has been isolating around 150,000 people, according to the UN.
02:48And it's made it incredibly difficult for these communities to access basic necessities
02:53like health care, food and water.
02:56A lot of Lebanese people are also saying that they are terrified that history is just repeating itself
03:01because Lebanon, a third of Lebanon, was under Israeli occupation between 1982 and 2000.
03:08And that 18-year occupation is what gave rise to Hezbollah in the first place.
03:16Now, images and videos circulating online since yesterday, since Tuesday,
03:21also show the Lebanese army withdrawing from a lot of these communities,
03:27making people there feel completely abandoned.
03:31Olivia, thanks very much.
03:33Olivia Beezo joining us live there from Beirut.
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