Everyone's fleeing Israeli attacks in Lebanon. Here's why I'm staying.
Israeli strikes, ground incursions, and evacuation warnings have emptied most of southern Lebanon, but in the coastal city of Tyre, one hotel owner refuses to leave.
By: John Beck
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OUR LEAD STORY:
Walid Salha walked through the arched doorway of the beachfront hotel he owns in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre and blinked in the sunshine that bore down on its ochre walls and the narrow alleys of the surrounding Christian quarter. An angler cast his line into the gentle Mediterranean swell, and both he and Walid ignored the rumble of Israeli warplanes overhead.
The jets have been circling constantly since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah intensified at the beginning of the month, trailing corkscrewed contrails across the skies and launching regular airstrikes. Many of Tyre’s residents have fled, and downtown streets are shuttered and empty, but Walid, 61, has no intention of leaving the city he loves, so as war closes in, he opens the hotel to neighbors in need of shelter.
“I was born here,” he said. “This is my house, my life, my everything.”
After the paywall:
-Why Walid is staying in Tyre despite evacuation orders;
-What he remembers from the last Israeli invasion he lived through as a child;
-How families across southern Lebanon are reacting as airstrikes intensify and displacement spreads north.
Lebanon is now one of its hottest fronts of this war, and expanding our team to keep pace with this conflict costs money. That’s why this story is behind a paywall.
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