Lebanese Christian villages caught in Israel-Hezbollah war

The Israel Defense Forces issued their first evacuation order for downtown Beirut today

ahead of airstrikes, along with a sweeping new evacuation order across southern Lebanon.

About 10 percent of Lebanese territory is now under Israeli evacuation notices.

This latest war has killed nearly 700 Lebanese and displaced some 800,000, including many

Christians.

Special correspondent Simona Fultine reports from Beirut.

In Beirut, a Christian community from Lebanon's south mourns one of their own.

That's him.

He was a beautiful soul.

Samir Aferi was killed in an Israeli strike on Sunday in his village of Al-Mashab.

He had recently celebrated his 70th birthday.

Maria is his niece.

He was watering his plants.

That's it.

He was watering his plants and he was murdered.

We can't find an explanation for why we could this happen.

Just an innocent plan who wanted to stay in his land where he grew up.

The mayor of Al-Mashab, Shadi Sayeh, says there were no hisbola fighters in the village.

We thought that there is no reason to bomb us and we're not threatening anyone.

And you know very well that we are an innocent people and we need to stay in our land.

Al-Mashab is a Christian majority village, 70 miles south of Beirut, close to Lebanon's

border with Israel.

It was one of the first to be drawn into the conflict in October 2023.

Back then, hisbola, a Shia paramilitary group, did use its surroundings to fire rockets

into northern Israel, beginning the day after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel.

The news hour visited Al-Mashab last summer after a ceasefire went into effect.

The villagers had raised funds to renovate the church.

The bakery had reopened.

Despite regular Israeli ceasefire violations, villagers like Sami hoped they could rebuild

that life could return to what it once was.

But after hisbola re-entered the war last week, Israel dramatically escalated its attacks

on Lebanon.

On March 4th, Israel warned dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, including Al-Mashab

to leave.

Rights groups say these evacuation orders constitute force displacement and are illegal

under international law.

At first, the residents refused to comply.

They gathered in the basement of the church seeking protection.

The mayor encouraged them to stay.

Why would we leave our land and our people?

It's our right to protect our homes.

Because we believe that maybe in 20-24 they had the executes to the bomb because hisbola

was over there or whatever.

But now, in that moment, one year, four months, there is no one.

Despite that, the idea began striking the village.

First, they hit a police vehicle.

We thought it was a message not to move around.

So on Sunday, they killed Sami.

I was next to him by 30 meters away.

I saw him.

They directed him directly.

No one felt safe after that.

The Lebanese army had already withdrawn, leaving the 83 remaining residents with no protection.

Shadi had no choice.

This is him organizing an evacuation convoy escorted by UN peacekeepers.

Maybe two wants to stay.

I go back down, kiss their hands, please leave.

Please leave.

An old woman, I told her, please leave.

She told me where to leave.

I don't have money.

There is no place to go.

Because if you stay, your dad, definitely your dad.

And so the people of Al-Masha left.

At the funeral wake, they mourn not just Sami, but also their village.

Everybody is depressed, everybody is sad, everybody feels like we're never going back again.

I mean, I lost my home as well, where I grew up for 18 years and I lived there.

The story of Al-Mashaab illustrates how Christians are being drawn into a conflict that is

not their own.

In another border village, a priest was killed on Monday in a double-tap Israeli attack.

Father Pierre Al-Rahi had also refused to leave.

The war has deepened sectarian tensions between Christians and Shia Muslims.

With some worried, it could lead to internal strife reminiscent of the Lebanese civil

war.

And Beirut, flags of the Lebanese forces, a Christian party, have been put up to demarcate

Christian areas.

The party is a staunch opponent of Hezbollah.

Well, Hezbollah decided single-handedly to re-enter the war triggered by the events in

Iran, of course.

So this is a suicide action by Hezbollah taking the whole country, the whole of Lebanon,

into a regional conflict, into the unknown.

Hassan Hasbani blames Hezbollah for bringing Christian villages under Israeli fire.

In some occasions, Hezbollah has been able to infiltrate some of those villages, endangering

the people who decided to remain in the villages and not to be part of that conflict.

This has made some Christian towns reluctant to accept Shia Muslims fleeing war.

More than 800,000 people, that's 13% of Lebanon's population, have been displaced.

In Razir, a small town just north of Beirut, only a few dozen families have been assigned

to the local school.

None of them wanted to show their faces on camera.

When the showing started, the children were crying.

We were forced to leave.

We couldn't find a place to stay.

This place was available through the Lebanese army.

They provide all the services.

Everyone here has a family member in the army.

The school's turn shelters in Christian areas are tightly controlled and that is to keep

tensions at bay and to manage fears that they could become targets for Israeli air strikes.

Now the officials at this school were reluctant to speak on camera, but they told us that

the only families sheltering here at the moment are those affiliated with state institutions

like the Lebanese army and the civil defense.

The locals in Razir have mixed feelings about taking in the displaced.

On the one hand, they have empathy towards innocent civilians.

They're invited.

We are like each other.

It's not their fault.

What happened is not their fault.

But they're also worried that they could bring the war with them.

It's better for us if we don't take them.

We need to protect ourselves.

If Israel wants to kill someone, if they want an Iranian or has below, they will hit

us like any other area.

Despite the divisions, there are also calls for unity.

The solution is for people to wake up to just understand that we're all humans who live

in this planet.

As Israeli troops launch a fresh ground incursion into the South, all of its inhabitants,

Christian or Muslim, stand to lose.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Simona Fultine in Lebanon.

The NewsHour requested comment from the Israel Defense Forces on some of the attacks

Simona just reported they did not respond.

Tomorrow evening, we'll have a report from Northern Israel looking at the war's effects

there.