Lebanese Christian villages caught in Israel-Hezbollah war

Geoff Bennett:

The Israel Defense Forces issued their first evacuation order for downtown Beirut today ahead of airstrikes, along with a sweeping new evacuation order across Southern Lebanon.

About 10 percent of Lebanese territory is now under Israeli evacuation notices. This latest war has killed nearly 700 Lebanese and displaced some 800,000, including many Christians.

Special correspondent Simona Foltyn reports from Beirut.

Simona Foltyn:

In Beirut, a Christian community from Lebanon's south mourns one of their own.

Maria Ghafary, Niece of Strike Victim: Well, that's him. He was a beautiful soul.

Simona Foltyn:

Sami Ghafary was killed in an Israeli strike on Sunday in his village of Alma al-Shaab. He had recently celebrated his 70th birthday. Maria is his niece.

Maria Ghafary:

He was watering his plant. That's it. He was watering his plants, and he was murdered. We can't find an explanation for why would -- could this happen, just an innocent man who wanted to stay in his land where he grew up.

Simona Foltyn:

The mayor of Alma al-Shaab, Chadi Sayeh, says there were no Hezbollah fighters in the village.

Chadi Sayeh, Mayor of Alma al-Shaab, Lebanon: We thought that there's no reason to bomb us and we're not threatening anyone. And you know very well that we are an innocent people, and we need to stay on our land. That's it.

Simona Foltyn:

Alma al-Shaab is a Christian majority village 70 miles south of Beirut, close to Lebanon's border with Israel. It was one of the first to be drawn into the conflict in October 2023.

Back then, Hezbollah, a Shia paramilitary group, did use its surroundings to fire rockets into Northern Israel beginning the day after the Hamas attacks on Southern Israel. The "News Hour" visited Alma al-Shaab last summer after a cease-fire went into effect. The villagers had raised funds to renovate the church. The bakery had reopened.

Despite regular Israeli cease-fire violations, villagers like Sami hoped they could rebuild, that life could return to what it once was. But after Hezbollah reentered the war last week, Israel dramatically escalated its attacks on Lebanon. On March 4, Israel warned dozens of villages in Southern Lebanon, including Alma al-Shaab, to leave.

Rights groups say these evacuation orders constitute forced displacement and are illegal under international law. At first, the residents refused to comply. They gathered in the basement of the church seeking protection. The mayor encouraged them to stay.

Chadi Sayeh (through interpreter):

Why would we leave our land and our people? It's our right to protect our homes.

Because we believe that, maybe in '23-'24, they had the excuse to bomb because Hezbollah was there or whatever. But now, in that moment, one year, four months, there is no one.

Simona Foltyn:

Despite that, the IDF began striking the village. First, they hit a police vehicle.

Chadi Sayeh:

We thought it was a message not to move around. So on Sunday, they killed Sami. I was next to him by 30 meters away. I saw him. They directed him directly.

Simona Foltyn:

No one felt safe after that. The Lebanese army had already withdrawn, leaving the 83 remaining residents with no protection.

Chadi had no choice. This is him organizing an evacuation convoy escorted by U.N. peacekeepers.

Chadi Sayeh:

Maybe two wants to stay. I go beg them, kiss their hands: "Please leave. Please leave." An old woman, I told her: "Please leave."

She told me:

"Where to leave? I don't have money. There is no place to go."

"So, because if you stay, you are dead. Definitely you are dead."

Simona Foltyn:

And so the people of Alma al-Shaab left. At the funeral wake, they mourned not just Sami, but also their village.

Maria Ghafary:

Everybody is depressed. Everybody is sad. Everybody feels like we are never going back again. I mean, I lost my home as well, where I grew up for 18 years. And I lived there.

Simona Foltyn:

The story of Alma al-Shaab illustrates how Christians are being drawn into a conflict that is not their own.

In another border village, a priest was killed on Monday in a double-tap Israeli attack. Father Pierre al-Rahi had also refused to leave. The war has deepened sectarian tensions between Christians and Shia Muslims, with some worried it could lead to internal strife reminiscent of the Lebanese civil war.

In Beirut, flags of the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party, have been put up to demarcate Christian areas. The party is a staunch opponent of Hezbollah.

Ghassan Hasbani, Parliament Member, Lebanese Forces:

Well, Hezbollah decided single-handedly to reenter the war triggered by the events in Iran, of course. So this is a suicide action by Hezbollah, taking the whole country, the whole of Lebanon, into a regional conflict, into the unknown.

Simona Foltyn:

Ghassan Hasbani blames Hezbollah for bringing Christian villages under Israeli fire.

Ghassan Hasbani:

In some occasions, Hezbollah has been able to infiltrate some of those villages, endangering the people who decided to remain in their villages and not to be part of that conflict.

Simona Foltyn:

This has made some Christian towns reluctant to accept Shia Muslims fleeing war. More than 800,000 people -- that's 13 percent of Lebanon's population -- have been displaced.

In Ghazir, a small town just north of Beirut, only a few dozen families have been assigned to the local school. None of them wanted to show their faces on camera.

Man (through interpreter):

When the shelling started, the children were crying. We were forced to leave. We couldn't find a place to stay. This place was available through the Lebanese army. They provide all the services. Everyone here has a family member in the army.

Simona Foltyn:

The schools turned shelters in Christian areas are tightly controlled, and that is to keep tensions at bay and to manage fears that they could become targets for Israeli airstrikes. Now, the officials at the school were reluctant to speak on camera, but they told us that the only families sheltering here at the moment are those affiliated with state institutions like the Lebanese army and the civil defense.

The locals in Ghazir have mixed feelings about taking in the displaced. On the one hand, they have empathy towards innocent civilians.

Jameel Slaibi, Shopkeeper (through interpreter):

They're invited. We are like each other. It's not their fault. What happened is not their fault.

Simona Foltyn:

But they're also worried that they could bring the war with them.

Jameel Slaibi (through interpreter):

It's better for us if we don't take them. We need to protect ourselves. If Israel wants to kill someone, if they want an Iranian or Hezbollah, they will hit us like any other area.

Simona Foltyn:

Despite the divisions, there are also calls for unity.

Maria Ghafary:

The solution is for people to wake up, to just understand that we're all one, that we're all humans who live in this -- on this planet.

Simona Foltyn:

As Israeli troops launch a fresh ground incursion into the south, all of its inhabitants, Christian or Muslim, stand to lose.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Simona Foltyn in Lebanon.

Geoff Bennett:

The "News Hour" requested comment from the Israel Defense Forces on some of the attacks Simona just reported. They did not respond.

Tomorrow evening, we will have a report from Northern Israel looking at the war's effects there.