By Nohad Topalian | 2024-10-18

BEIRUT -- From a town overlooking Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport, Rima watched an Israeli air strike on September 28.

"First, I saw a bright light followed by a huge explosion accompanied by fire and smoke. My four children and I felt as if the building would collapse on us," she told Al-Fassel.

Rima, who used only her first name for security reasons, evacuated to Choueifat with her family from Lailaki.

"After everything I have experienced in the past few days, I realized that we are living on a volcano of weapons, ammunition and missiles that Hizbullah stores underground, amidst homes in neighborhoods and villages affiliated with it," she said.

"I thought that our safety was a priority for Hizbullah, which I supported, but this war revealed that it turned us into human shields," Rima said. "People are being killed because its outposts and weapon warehouses are being bombed."

"We blame Hizbullah for what happened to us," she said.

Rima's terrifying moments were shared by a large number of Lebanese from the south, the Bekaa Valley, Beirut and other regions.

Israeli strikes have been targeting Hizbullah infrastructure, including warehouses and civilian buildings containing light and heavy weapons and ammunition.

Rima apparently witnessed an Israeli strike on the Musawi warehouse adjacent to Beirut's southern suburb, a Hizbullah stronghold.

The warehouse contained Hizbullah surface-to-air missiles and the raid caused the stored ammunition to explode.

Disregarding civilian safety

While Hizbullah denies storing weapons near the airport and in civilian buildings, video of the strikes showed secondary explosions of ammunition coming from houses in the south and the Bekaa.

Hizbullah in recent years has reportedly set up weapons and ammunition warehouses around the airport, where it takes delivery of Iranian weapons and equipment.

"Hizbullah has repeatedly denied storing its weapons in populated residential areas, but Israeli raids have revealed that it stores large quantities among innocent citizens," said a Shia opposition figure who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hizbullah's practice "has caused the death of hundreds of [civilians] to date and the destruction of everything they own," he told Al-Fassel.

"Hizbullah has always denied storing weapons in warehouses around the airport, but field reports showed otherwise," he said. "The recent raid revealed the presence of weapons near a public facility, namely, the airport."

"We live on the crater of a volcano that could explode at any moment if the Israeli air force raids it," he said.

"Hizbullah has never taken the safety of the Lebanese into consideration," he said. "It is continuing its war despite the heavy losses it has suffered and what it is causing to Lebanon."