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Beirut in Ruins

Hezbollah's Dead Neighborhood

By Ulrike Putz in Beirut

After more than a week of Israeli bombing raids, Lebanon's southern suburb of Haret Hreik has become uninhabitable. Hezbollah is organizing visits for journalists to the devastated neighborhood that was once its stronghold.

There are wars in which one bombed-out building is shown from different angles so many times that most television viewers end up thinking the whole city has been devastated. There is no need for such tricks in Beirut. In Haret Hreik, a cameraman who wants to show the consequences of war just has to keep on filming -- entire streets in the Beirut suburb have ceased to exist.

A drive to the southern suburbs of Beirut is like a nightmare in which everything only gets worse. At first it's only the burnt smell that reminds you that the ruins alongside the street don't date back to the last war. Next come the craters in the asphalt where bombs have hit, then a burnt-down gas station, and then a newly destroyed highway bridge. But it's only on stepping out of the cars marked "TV" and proceeding on foot that you understand the catastrophe that is playing out in Haret Hreik these days. There is more destruction, more rubble around every street corner -- until the sheer quantity of shattered concrete just blocks your path, stops you from moving further into the chaos.

As many as 700,000 people are thought to have lived in the southern suburbs of Beirut. No exact figures exist of how many called Haret Hreik their home. But one thing is clear: the district is now completely deserted. The Shiite-dominated working-class neighborhood, a stronghold of Hezbollah located between the city center and the airport, has been attacked to the point of being uninhabitable. And the bombs keep falling several times a day. The only people who continue to frequent the neighborhood are the ones who have no other choice, and they don't stay any longer than necessary. Cars race through the streets at speeds as high as 100 kph (62 mph) -- streets where you used to be stuck in perennial traffic jams. Pedestrians keep falling into a nervous trot and cast worried glances skyward. As if that will help -- only two seconds of time separate the sound of an approaching Israeli fighter jet and the detonation on the ground, they say. There's no time to take shelter.

Armed men stand on some street crossings. They're meant to discourage looters and catch Israeli spies. The latter are suspected of being everywhere since war broke out. Some Hezbollah representatives who have agreed to lead a few journalists into Haret Hreik consult with militia members. Is the neighborhood safe? The answer is vague -- move quickly, don't stand around for too long under any circumstances.

The tour leads past bedrooms whose outer wall is missing and stores whose metal blinds have been ripped out by explosions. It leads past a burnt-down store called "Chic-Choc, Bags and Shoes" and an "Oxford Language Center" whose façade lies in pieces on the street. Glass shards from shattered storefronts lie inches-deep on the street and make crunching noises as you walk over them. The stench of trash is in the air. The air tastes dusty from the blasted concrete.

The Hezbollah leaders are nervous. The last attack on these streets happened only a few hours ago, and the next one could be imminent. The men keep in touch with each other by Walkie Talkie -- the signal from a mobile phone could attract Israeli attackers to the group. Drones and spy planes are searching for anything in the neighborhood that's still moving, the men claim. Faint echoes from distant explosions are felt more than they are heard. "That's the airport," one man says. "It's being bombed again."

The translator begins to cry as we approach a street where the devastation is particularly bad. "I know this street," she says. "I was often here." She tells us that the burning building down there used to be a children's hospital. The men from Hezbollah are staring down the street too. "If what happened here happened in the USA, in Israel, France or another Arab state, the people would cry, scream and be angry. But it makes us stronger and nourishes our hunger for more fighting," one of the men claims. He says he's glad that fighting on the ground has now begun.

Grim tour with propaganda included

Of course, the quick visit organized by Hezbollah is a propaganda event. According to the men from Hezbollah, everyone who died in the entire area was a civilian. "There were no martyrs -- only civilians died," the leader of the men says. "Why is Israel doing this?" But who can say whether mobile rocket launchers weren't hidden in these densely inhabited residential streets. It's a known fact that Hezbollah -- which is a legally recognized political party in Lebanon, and which is represented in parliament -- had many of its offices and social centers in this neighborhood. It is reasonable to assume that the military section of the militia was also present here.

But even if the Israelis did assume that this neighborhood served as a hideout and base of operations -- the attacks on Haret Hreik are not a matter of "surgical strikes" against military targets alone. UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour said on Wednesday that war crimes that need to be punished may have been committed during last week's fighting. The ruins of the residential neighborhood could at least serve as corroborative evidence for the charge of "predictable death or injury of civilians."

A man rushes to the porch where our little group is standing, seeking shelter. He's clutching a bundle of plastic bags. "I thought I could use them to take a few things from home with me," says the man, who is in his mid-40s. But his home no longer exists.

The apartment building that Khaled points to is a crushed concrete sandwich -- steel girders, parts of balconies and the remains of furniture jut out from between the massive concrete slabs. In this case, the cliché is accurate: The man's life is in ruins. Just three days ago, he came here from a northern suburb where he had taken refuge with his family. His house was still standing then. "It must have happened the night before last," he says calmly -- as if he still can't understand what has happened to him.