Seventeen people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon, the deadliest cross-border violence since the 2006 war. The strikes, which hit a residential building in the village of Adaisseh, have drawn condemnation from Hezbollah and raised fears of a broader regional conflict.
Local medics reported that the dead included women and children, with dozens more wounded. The Lebanese army confirmed that the strikes targeted areas near the border, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. The attack came after a period of heightened tension, following a rocket attack on Israel from southern Lebanon last week.
For the people of this region, the bombs are not abstract. They are the sound of a kitchen ceiling collapsing. They are the price of a loaf of bread when a siege cuts off supply routes. This is not geopolitics. This is the sound of family photos falling off the wall.
Israel said the strikes were a response to the rocket fire, which it blamed on Hezbollah. “We will not tolerate aggression on our borders,” a military spokesperson said. But on the ground, the reality is that the cost of this retaliation is being paid by ordinary families. The bakeries in Tyre are shuttered. The market stalls are empty. The children who would have been in school are now counting the craters.
The United Nations has called for restraint, warning that the situation is ‘ripe for miscalculation’. But for the workers in the olive groves, for the union organisers who risk their lives to demand a living wage, the fear is that the international community’s words are hollow. They have seen this before. The bombs fall. The bodies are counted. The diplomats talk. And then the cycle starts again.
In the villages of southern Lebanon, where the economy has been suffocated by years of crisis, this is another blow. The cost of a chicken has tripled in a month. The diesel for the generator is now a luxury. And now, the fear of war means that even the basic act of buying bread becomes a gamble.
Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has promised a ‘strong response’ to the strikes. In the markets of Beirut, traders are already pricing in the risk. The Lebanese pound is plunging. The price of a bottle of cooking oil is up by 20% in a day. The real economy is a mirror of the fear.
As night falls on the rubble, the families of the dead are left to mourn. They are not numbers. They are the fabric of a community that has been torn. The world watches, but for the people of southern Lebanon, the bombs are the only language that is being spoken. And it is a language of pain.
