BEIRUT: Haitham Al-Mousawi has spent two decades documenting Lebanon’s wars through his camera lens, capturing scenes of destruction, grief and displacement. Yet, he says nothing prepared him for what he witnessed in the past week.
“What I photographed over the past few days is worse than everything I’ve documented in years combined,” the photojournalist told Arab News.
Families fled their homes in panic, often with no time to gather belongings. “People came straight out of their beds onto the streets, still in their pajamas,” he said. “One man was screaming that he had left his father behind because the old man was on an oxygen machine and could not be moved.
“Women ran carrying children in one arm and blankets in the other. Children were crying, chasing after parents who themselves didn’t know where they were fleeing to.”
The pre-dawn hours of Monday turned into a nightmare for many Lebanese as the fragile calm along the border collapsed. Hezbollah fired six Katyusha rockets into Israeli territory — the first such attack since the November 2024 ceasefire. Israel responded with devastating airstrikes that tore into Beirut’s southern suburbs and swept across large parts of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
