I was away from Beirut for one week and in that time full-blown war began. My apartment, like the homes of so many others, appears to be inside the evacuation area. My neighbourhood is not in the area known as Dahiyeh, or Beirut’s southern suburbs, though it is very close to it. Once outside the evacuation zone, I called a taxi through an app and got a lift to my friend’s house. The taxi driver told me that he, too, was displaced by evacuation orders: he was sleeping in the streets with his family.

Source: The Irish Times March 10, 2026 14:29 UTC