Cars sit in traffic as they flee the southern villages amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, in Sidon, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Photo: AP Cars sit in traffic as they flee the southern villages amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, in Sidon, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Photo: AP

The fear of an all-out war is at an all-time high in the Middle East region, with Lebanon's Shia Islamist militant outfit Hezbollah and Israel exchanging fire non-stop and the people, the collateral damage in any conflict, are already scrambling to find safe spaces to move to amid the relentless strikes.

In Lebanon, around 500 people have died since Monday in Israeli airstrikes that are part of the salvo going on since a week, taking the tensions in the nearly yearlong conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to the most severe stage. The Israeli military on Tuesday claimed it has killed Ibrahim Kobeisi, a Hezbollah commander in a strike in Beirut, news agency Associated Press reported.

Israel and Hezbollah, who have carried out repeated strikes against each other since the war on Gaza began on October 7 following Palestenian militant group Hamas attack on Israeli territories, are the closest to an all-out war than ever before following the wave of explosions in Lebanon that hit pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members last Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people - including two children - and leaving about 3,000 injured.

Since the pager and walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon, for which Israel has been blamed, multiple strikes have hit what the Israeli side has called Hezbollah targets in the country, killing hundreds so far. Hezbollah, vowing to retaliate, Hezbollah launched a wave of rockets on Friday, September 20, and lost a top commander to an Israeli strike in Beirut that killed dozens. Since then, the exchange of fire has not stopped.

Middle East Tensions Post Oct 7 Hamas Attack

Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful armed force, is a close ally and a proxy of Iran, which supports Palestenian groups like Hamas. Iran had threatened to retaliate for the killing of a senior Palestinian militant group Hamas's leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in an explosion in Iran's Tehran in July that was widely blamed on Israel, which has not said whether it was involved. Later Israeli military claimed responsibility for a targeted strike that killed one of Hezbollah's founding members Fouad Shukur in July itself. 

The root of the Middle East tensions lies in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack into Israel, in which the Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. Hamas militants are said to be still holding about 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead. Over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It doesn't say how many were fighters, but says women and children make up more than half of the dead.

Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept rockets that were launched from Lebanon, in northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Photo: AP Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept rockets that were launched from Lebanon, in northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Photo: AP

Israel declared an all-out war against Hamas and on Gaza post the October 7 attack and launched deadly strikes that have killed over 41,000 people in Gaza so far. Israel's rivals such as Iran and its proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis (in Yemen) have since then been pushing for an end to the war on Gaza. While Iran has not directly attacked Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas have.

Israel-Hezbollah Clashes

The past week has seen a rapid escalation in the nearly yearlong conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Two days after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded, deadly attacks pinned on Israel that also maimed civilians across Lebanon, Hezbollah carried launched a wave of rockets into northern Israel.

Later in the day (September 20), the commander of Hezbollah's most elite unit was killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon's Beirut that killed dozens more people.

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The cross-border attacks spiked early Sunday (September 22), with Iraninan-backed Shiite group Hezbollah, launching more than 100 rockets deeper into northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa. Israel then launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon.

A man watches rescuers sift through the rubble as they search for people still missing at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024 Photo: AP A man watches rescuers sift through the rubble as they search for people still missing at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024 Photo: AP

On Monday, Israel launched a series of strikes that killed more than 490 Lebanese, the deadliest attack since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Israel warned residents in southern and eastern Lebanon to leave their homes ahead of a spreading air campaign against Hezbollah.

Amid War, People Scramble For Safety

Amid fears of the escalating violence leading to an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, which would further destabilise a region already shaken by the fighting in Gaza, people have been suffering the most, as is the usual in any conflict between countries.

Gripped by panic and fear amid non-stop Israeli strikes, people in Lebanon have been engaged in a desperate hunt for safe spaces, taking along with them children to shelter at schools, as seen in videos that have surfaced of the destruction caused by the deadliest day of Israeli strikes in the country since 2006 on Monday, September 23.

“We got very stressed, this is why we had to leave and we came here. We were told it’s safe here. The situation is very tragic, the strikes were right next to us,” news agency AFP quoted as saying Fatma Ibrahim Shehab, who is those who took shelter at a school in the coastal city of Sidon after being evacuated from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes. 

ALSO READ: 'War Is Not With You': Netanyahu's Message For Lebanon After 492 Killed In Deadliest Israeli Strikes | Top Points

Mohamed Hamayda, a Syrian man displaced from Deir al-Zahrani, told AFP that he had no choice but to take his mother and the rest of his family on public transport to the Kuwaiti school in Sidon after being told it had opened as a shelter.

"Where are we supposed to go? A lot of people are still stuck on the streets. A lot of my friends are still stuck in traffic because a lot of people are trying to flee," BBC quoted as saying Zahra Sawli, a student in the southern town of Nabatieh.

Emergency workers use excavators to clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024.Photo: AP Emergency workers use excavators to clear the rubble at the site of Friday's Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024.Photo: AP

Unlike many, she and those she was with did not leave the house following the warnings people received in the form of text messages and voice recordings from the Israeli military to leave areas near the Iran-backed group’s positions.

In northern Israel also, residents feel there is nowhere to go amid fear and uncertainty.

“Elderly citizens who built this country, who fought for it, who built their communities, now go from hotel to hotel,” said Moshe Davidovich, chairman of the Conflict Zone Forum, a group that represents some 60,000 residents of the 23 municipalities, villages, and regional councils along Israel’s northern border who have been forced from their homes.

“I attend funerals of dozens of people in our region who have died – not from disease but from sorrowastigbet,” Davidovich told The Times of Israel.

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