Airstrikes in Beirut with myna Courage Shape Tomatoes continue today, I wonder if you can describe the situation in Beirut including civilian casualties. You know Jim we’re on the edge of the southern suburbs of the B Routes. Which has been the focus of these intense Israeli airstrikes. Particularly over the last forty-eight hours or so these airstrikes have been ongoing. As a result we’ve seen a mass exodus of civilians of people from an area called da hear of Beirut route. I think you can see behind me right now we’re starting to, we’re still seeing people who are either now getting a chance to leave with a little bit of stuff. Who have tried to go back and get some stuff. Get out there we’re right outside a school that’s been converted into a shelter. This is one of many shelters that are unoccupied but officials are struggling to keep up with the number of people. Who have been displaced in just a few days.
According to officials almost one million people have been displaced in Lebanon mostly in the southern part of the country, the B Route southern suburbs as well as in the eastern part of the country and if you look at the B Route southern suburbs it is one of the most densely populated areas or was of Beirut. There was a Hezbollah presence here as we saw here the Israelis killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders of the group, but it is also home to hunting. There are streets and hundreds of thousands of people who are now forced out of their homes. I mentioned some people are in these schools, but then you also have a lot of people who don’t know where they’re going for four days now they’re on the street, I mean just a moment ago we were in central Beirut in the heart of the capital. We found people still camping on sidewalks in parks.
Families with young children we spoke to Lebanese families, Syrian refugees who have been in this country for ten years, who fled the civil war in their country. Now they are here again displaced people, with no place to go, we met migrant workers from Bangladesh who came to Ethiopia and absolutely hopeless situation and we are talking about people living on the streets. Who have no toilet, no facilities, I mean we heard from some people that they have to go to the sea to wash. Because they have no other place to go. I met an elderly woman from Syria and she said that she fled from the air strikes, she didn’t even have shoes. She held a small plastic bag with her medicines and small pack of tissues because that’s what she does to survive. She sells those tissues and makes a living from that.
She broke down saying that she doesn’t know what is going to happen to them now. She has no home in Syria, it was destroyed in the civil war. She has no money, there is no place to go here, there are stories after stories like this here and it’s absolutely hopeless situation here. It’s a sadly familiar story, so often civilians are caught in the middle of this conflict. The U.S. position here is that they are at least looking at the possibility of an Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanon. Israeli officials have said today that for them that is just one option. What is the latest situation and whether Israel has made preparations to allow a forced crossing of the border.
While preparations are certainly underway it depends on whether they have enough troops. What is the scale of this ground incursion or not is another question and beyond that, of course it’s clear that the Israeli government has not yet made a final decision about whether to encourage a ground incursion. In fact this next step is what U.S. officials are selling to us that they are actually looking at preparations for a limited ground incursion in their work. That is based on the mobilization of troops.