The coastal road that connects Beirut to Tyre, 80 km south of Lebanese capital, gives off an acrid smell of destruction.

For miles, the only vehicles visible on this once-busy highway are the wrecked carcasses strewn along the road, grim remnants of the violence unleashed by Israeli strikes.

Tyre, the pearl of southern Lebanon, known as Sour in Arabic, is appreciated for its historical heritage, architectural beauty and beaches. Today, the ancient city seems cut off from the world.

“It’s like this, we can’t do anything about it,” Abou Elias, 75, told Middle East Eye.

Sitting on a chair in front of his home near the port, the old man refuses to leave his house despite warnings from his loved ones.

“I fear more for the new generation than for myself, my life is over,” he says with a smile, unfazed by the sound of bombing nearby.

“It’s like this day and night. From here, we hear all the Israeli strikes on the nearest villages. Sometimes, it’s our town that is hit.”

Since October 8, 2023 and the opening of a support front in Gaza by the Lebanese Hezbollah party, the area has been under constant tension. According to official figures from the Ministry of Health, more than 3,580 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 15,200 injured, the majority since the end of September.

Relatively spared until then, the town of Sour was targeted by massive strikes since the end of October.

“Clear memory”

Abou Elias has no doubt that this Israeli offensive is the most violent he has experienced in his life. According to him, this is the first time that so many residents have left the city.

“I’m not in good health and I’m one of the few people who own a historic house in the city center. Leaving it is out of the question. It’s at least 200 years old. This is where I am born and maybe that’s where I’ll die,” he said.

“My life is not very important, but if they destroy Sour, the Israelis will erase the memory”

– Abou Elias, resident of Sour, 75 years old

“I’m like many people here. My life is not very important, but if they destroy Sur, the Israelis will erase the memory. And the history of our city is brilliant.”

Continuously inhabited for 4,000 years, Sour is written in golden letters in the history of the Mediterranean basin. Its sailors, the Phoenicians, contributed to the construction of large cities overseas, such as Carthage in Tunisia and Cadiz in Spain.

Sur has many ancient sites, mainly located in an area known as Al Mina (the port), and the city as a whole was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1984.

“Archaeological sites are generally far from cities and not very accessible to the population. In Tyre, on the other hand, they are part of the landscape, of the collective identity,” explains Alia Fares, archaeologist and heritage consultant for the American Society of Overseas Research. ASOR), told MEE. “That’s why residents are so worried.”

The Al Mina site, home to remains from the Greek, Roman and Byzantine eras, is located within the city walls and is particularly vulnerable to nearby bombing.

Abou Elias, a prominent Christian figure in the city, also accuses Israel of trying to sow discord between the different Lebanese religious communities that constitute an essential legacy of the city’s history.

“All the religious communities have lived here for so long,” he said.

“Israeli’s desire to sow discord between Shiite Muslims and members of other faiths in order to lead the country towards a new civil war is absurd”

– Ali, fisherman

A few meters away, near the port, a statue of the Virgin Mary watches over the boats. “Sometimes tourists ask us if we are in the Christian quarter. We tell them that there is not, our neighborhoods are mixed,” continues Abou Elias.

For Ali*, a fisherman in his fifties, “the Israeli desire to sow discord between Shiite Muslims and members of other faiths in order to lead the country towards a new civil war is absurd.”

“They won’t make it,” he said. “Sour is the best example of cohesion that can exist, we don’t even know the religion of our neighbors.”

Hussein Kawar, a 46-year-old resident met by MEE at the port, said he feared the town would be razed. But, he stressed, “its stones are also built in our hearts”.

“My whole family is from Sour. I experienced the Israeli occupation when I was younger. They arrested all the men in my neighborhood and we were interrogated for hours in the town’s rest house,” he told MEE, referring to the nearly two decades of Israeli occupation. southern Lebanon from the early 1980s until 2000.

‘I cried a lot’

Kawar also has no plans to leave Sour.

“That’s out of the question. I don’t want what happened to the Palestinians to happen to me. They had to flee and lost their towns and homes forever,” he told MEE, referring to the creation of Israel in 1948 during the civil war. from which 750,000 Palestinians were expelled, in an event known as the Nakba.

“Despite everything, I think that the Lebanese resistance is very strong and that (the Israelis) will not reach here,” he said.

“Their only strength is aviation; they are incapable of advancing on land and it is to make us pay for this that they are destroying the entire country from the air.”

Since the end of September, the Israeli ground offensive has encountered fierce resistance from Hezbollah fighters. However, for the first time, the Israeli army announced earlier this week that it had installed an artillery battery on Lebanese territory, in the village of Shamaa, about 15 kilometers from Sour, according to local media.

At the port, Adel el-Abedi, a fisherman of Palestinian origin, refitted his boat so that he could live there during the war, in the hope that it would protect him from strikes.

“We live day and night in fear of ‘evacuation orders’ (from the Israeli army) and strikes without warning,” he told MEE.

“Obviously, the current episode is more violent and bloodier than previous ones in our history, but it is a cyclical conflict that will only return if it is not resolved. We are obliged to resist; we have no choice.

For Abedi, the fear of seeing the descendants of the Israeli soldiers who expelled his father from Haifa in 1948 arrive in his town “is very strong”.

“Sour symbolizes many things to me, because this is where I was born. This is what sets this city apart from others. Despite my Palestinian identity, everyone treats me like family,” he told MEE.

“I cried a lot when the first bombings hit the city.”

Made in the USA

On the seafront, the scars of Israeli strikes are everywhere. In front of two destroyed buildings, Hezbollah supporters unfurled a “made in USA” banner. A few young people came to take selfies in front, before quickly disappearing.

In the sky, drones buzzing at very low altitude and military planes breaking the sound barrier were interpreted as a warning by residents, who quickly emptied the streets.

In a poor area of ​​the city, Rana*, 52, took MEE into the heart of a maze of alleys. Here too, a strike had disfigured the landscape a few days ago. The houses had collapsed like a house of cards.

“An 80-year-old woman who lived a few meters away was killed. Only families who cannot afford to leave the city remained,” Rana said.

“We are being hunted. We never thought we would be attacked here. There are no military targets and the Israelis know that very well.

“We live away from home as much as possible, just in case, but many of us would rather die at home than like animals on the street.”

Blood everywhere

Rukaya Halawi, 13, bears the scars on her face from the strike that ravaged her neighborhood. Shyly, she lifted her long hair to show the dozens of stitches healing her scalp.

Standing near her parents, the young girl recounts how she was injured and buried under the rubble for many minutes before her brother pulled her out with his bare hands and took her to the hospital.

“I was on the stairs of my house when I heard the terrifying sound of the missile. The rest is blurry. I remember the screams of my mother who thought I had been killed, and the pain… I n If you didn’t have the strength to do it, talk to them or call them for help.

“I remember the screams of my mother who thought I had been killed and the pain”

– Rukaya Halawi, 13 years old

The family was unanimous in saying that the Israeli army had not given any orders to leave before the attack.

“They have no mercy,” his father said angrily.

The young girl continues: “The mother of my best friend and neighbor succumbed to her injuries after having both legs amputated. My friend was heartbroken to see her mother in this state, she was the one who caused it. evacuated.”

“I can’t describe how chaotic the scene was,” Rukaya’s mother added.

“Everything was red, there was blood everywhere. But we accept all the trials that God imposes on us, everything becomes easy in the presence of resistance,” she said, referring to Hezbollah.

As heavy fighting continues between the group’s fighters and the Israeli army along Lebanon’s southern borders, many fear that Sour could be the scene of an Israeli maritime landing, especially since the amphibious aircraft operation carried out on November 1 in Batroun, a Christian seaside town located about 60 kilometers north of Beirut, which saw Israeli forces land from the sea.

In Sur, the same sea that has given everything to the city’s inhabitants for centuries is now viewed with apprehension.

“The Israelis are capable of anything, they can reduce our city overnight to a huge cemetery, destroy our historical heritage… After all, none of this matters to them,” said Ali, the fisherman.

* Names have been changed at the request of those interviewed.