Trapped between bombs and hope: Why Tyre has become Lebanon’s last refuge

TIRE, Lebanon — The choices Hassan Kareet left were all bad.

Israeli bombardment and the threat of invasion meant that Kareet could not stay in the Lebanese village of Bazourieh, about 18 kilometers from the Israeli border.

But as the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensified, finding accommodation in a country where an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced has become incredibly difficult.

Shelters were full, and landlords were demanding and receiving exorbitant rents and advances that Kareet, a pet store owner specializing in birds, could not afford.

Desperate, he brought his family to Tire. He was under Israeli evacuation orders, but at least he had places to stay for his wife and four children. And when things got too crowded, they could escape to Tire’s public park, where Kareet’s 5-year-old son Ali played on the slide.

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1. Lebanese people leave their homes after Israeli bombardment in Tire, Lebanon, on March 24. (FABIO BUCCIARELLI/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty) 2. Smoke rises from the ruins of a building destroyed in the air strike carried out by the Israeli Armed Forces in Tire, Lebanon, on March 24, 2026. After Hezbollah opened a new front in the regional war on March 2 following the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, Israel continued its attacks across Lebanon. (Photo: Fabio Bucciarelli / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images) (FABIO BUCCIARELLI/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty)

“We are scattered: some in one school, others in another shelter. I slept in the car,” Kareet said, keeping one eye on Ali and the other eye on the sky to see the Israeli warplane prowling above.

Another advantage of being here: Tire was close enough for Bazourieh to go and feed the 60 birds he had.

“I can’t release them. They won’t survive, and we also got new cubs,” he said. Yes, he was afraid of Israeli attack, but “What should I do? I can’t let them die.”

Tire, the country’s fifth largest city and a normally bustling seaside town with postcard-perfect Mediterranean views, has become a refuge of last resort even as the specter of long-term Israeli occupation looms over southern Lebanon.

Tents inside the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium in Beirut, currently used as shelter.

(Adri Salido/Getty Images)

Recently, the Israeli army bombed the bridges around Tire, located 19 kilometers north of the Israeli border, almost separating it from the rest of the country.

But according to government officials, about 20,000 people (about 16,000 displaced from nearby towns and villages, 4,000 city residents) are still alive. Before the war, the city’s population was 60,000.

“Where else can I go? The first night we left, we slept on the seaside promenade in Sidon. I won’t do that again,” said 52-year-old Atallah, sitting in the shade of a tree with his son, brother and aunt.

He referred to the city of Sidon, which is located 25 miles up the coast from Tire, outside the area Israel says it will occupy, about 20 miles from the border and covers a tenth of Lebanon’s territory. Atallah and his family did not give their full names for fear of harassment.

Although the Israeli army issued multiple bomb warnings for Tire that day, including an attack less than a mile from the park, Atallah could not remain holed up in the makeshift shelter at a nearby school where his family shared a classroom with three other families.

“I would stay in my village, but I couldn’t leave them,” he said, pointing to his son Mohammed, who has Down syndrome, who buried his face in Atallah’s belly as the warplane passed overhead.

A few minutes later, a bass was heard in the distance. Atallah walked to get a clearer view of the cloud of smoke that indicated where a bomb or missile had hit; Muhammad clung to Atallah’s leg the whole way.

People run in front of the tents of an improvised shelter on the beach in Beirut.

(Adri Salido/Getty Images)

War returned to Lebanon on March 2, when the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel to avenge the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed during the Israeli and US attack on Iran on February 28.

Hezbollah was also retaliating against Israeli attacks almost every day, despite the ceasefire agreement reached 15 months ago.

Israel responded with a violent attack that stunned Lebanon with the scope of the destruction. Authorities say nearly 1,100 people have been killed so far and a quarter of the country’s population has been displaced.

This week Israel said its troops would occupy part of southern Lebanon to create a “defensive buffer zone” and that no residents could return until northern Israel was safe. Israel’s defense minister also said the army would apply the “Gaza model” to parts of southern Lebanon, meaning entire villages and towns would be razed to the ground and residents permanently displaced.

The announcement raised fears about the long-term effects of the Israeli attack.

An Israeli self-propelled howitzer artillery gun fires shells towards southern Lebanon from a position in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel.

(Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is not a short shock…. The crisis is no longer just about where people will sleep tonight, but also how they will live, eat and access healthcare in the coming weeks,” Firass Abiad, who serves as Lebanon’s health minister until 2025, wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

“Resources, which are already barely sufficient for the poorest, will now need to be expanded further.”

Atallah’s sister-in-law, Randa, said that Israel’s announcement that it would invade increased his determination to stay. Although he was not part of Hezbollah, he supported the group, as did many people interviewed in Tire.

“I left the last war to another part of Lebanon and I regret it. I will not make the same mistake and I trust the men who fought the Israelis,” he said.

This is not the first time Tire deputy mayor Alwan Charafeddine has experienced Israeli attacks.

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1. French paratroopers, part of a multinational force, lead the evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat amid crowds and journalists in Beirut on August 30, 1982. (DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP via Getty Images) 2. A convoy of Syrian army vehicles leaves Beirut on August 30, 1982, as more than 10,000 fighters of the Palestine Liberation Organization were evacuated from the city. Israel invaded Lebanon that year.
(DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP via Getty Images)

The earliest incident that Charafeddine remembers was when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982; he was 9 years old and the family fled as bombs fell near their home in Tire at 03:00. He noncommittally listed other displacements: in 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2006.

“We and our children have been at war for generations,” he said, adding that if the Israeli army invades Tire, even people who do not support Hezbollah will fight.

Charafeddine said the municipality’s main problem for now is the survival of the only crossing to Tire, a narrow bridge over the old coastal road. Even now, he said, aid agencies are reluctant to make deliveries into the city for fear of getting stuck.

“If they remove the last bridge and nothing can get in, it would be a disaster,” he said.

Many of the displaced are now being pilcharded in the city’s quaint Old Quarter, which sits on a promontory jutting out from Tire’s northernmost tip and is excluded from the evacuation order.

On an unseasonably hot afternoon, families flocked to the beach and sunbathed in front of the deep blue Mediterranean. Some tried to maintain their routine by walking their dogs or running by the sea.

A photo taken from the Marjeyoun region of southern Lebanon shows smoke rising from the area targeted by Israeli artillery in the village of Zawtar El Charkiyeh on March 25.

(AFP via Getty Images)

One of those who seemed determined to ignore the war was Adnan Abdo, a Syrian Kurd who worked as a farmer in Tire. As the sea surrounded him, he balanced himself on a rock and threw a fishing rod into the sea.

He said he had been a victim of many conflicts: tensions against the Kurds in Syria meant he did not feel safe returning home, and with even the Lebanese having a hard time, he had little hope of finding a place to stay for his wife and two children elsewhere in Lebanon.

Moreover, Israel was attacking areas far beyond Hezbollah’s traditional areas of support, so nowhere was safe. His family was staying in one of the churches in Tire.

For now he was enjoying his chance to fish. He had already caught a few, and the resistance on the line was signaling that he would catch another.

People around him were looking up, looking for the fighter plane. But he did not take his eyes off the sea.

“What can I do about that plane anyway? Nothing,” Abdo said before reeling in another fish.