Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, was bracing for an Israeli bombardment on Monday after Israel announced it would strike the city’s southern suburbs. The warning stoked fears that the shaky cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah was on the brink of collapse.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement that he had ordered the Israeli military to attack the southern outskirts of Beirut, known as Dahiya, as part of the widening Israeli campaign against Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militia. Israel has mostly refrained from attacking the city since the U.S.-Iran cease-fire took effect in early April, but it has continued to bombard southern and eastern Lebanon. Hezbollah has fired on both Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and targets in northern Israel.
The announcement by Mr. Netanyahu prompted thousands of residents to flee their homes, clogging the roads out of the area late Monday morning. For many residents, the sudden exodus has become a miserable routine over nearly three years of conflicts between Hezbollah and Israel.
“I lost count of how many times I’ve evacuated,” said Zahra Khomasi, 43, as she sat in her car in Tayouneh on the outskirts of Dahiya.
Ms. Khomasi fled her home during the last escalation between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024 and then again when the latest war began in March. She returned in April after a shaky cease-fire went into effect, only to hurriedly pack up again on Monday and leave with her 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter.
“We’ve somehow become used to this,” Ms. Khomasi said.
Many in Dahiya have evacuated several times since 2023, when Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions in support of its ally, Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, setting off a major war with Israel. Although a cease-fire was declared in Lebanon in November 2024, fighting continued in large parts of the country.
The war reignited in March, after Hezbollah began firing at Israel in solidarity with Iran, days after the U.S.-Israeli war on Tehran began in late February. Though a U.S.-brokered cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah was announced in April, both sides have continued to launch attacks — fighting that has sharply escalated over the past week.
Lebanon’s government, which is distinct from Hezbollah, vowed to continue negotiating with Israel despite the latest Israeli threats against Beirut and its suburbs on Monday.
“Some regrettably consider negotiation to be surrender,” President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon said in a statement. “It is not that, nor is it a concession. It is a solution to stop wars with the least possible harm.”
The Trump administration has brokered rare talks between Israel and Lebanon in Washington on disarming Hezbollah, whose power and influence have long overshadowed the Lebanese government.
The relentless cycle of fighting has taken a toll on Lebanese people, even among Hezbollah’s support base in Dahiya, where the group holds sway.
“I’m really exhausted by this. It’s been nearly three years we’ve been suffering from this tension and stress,” said Batoul Hassan Srour, 47. “It’s enough. We’ve had enough.”
Ms. Srour left her home in Dahiya early Monday morning for a school that has become a shelter in Aramoun, north of Beirut. Later that day, she was still glued to her phone, anxiously refreshing news updates to see whether — and where — the Israeli military would strike. She said she hoped the bombardment of Dahiya would come quickly and that Israel would declare the operation over so that she could return home Monday night.
But as the hours passed, that possibility seemed increasingly unlikely — and the already tenuous cease-fire increasingly fragile.
“I don’t believe in this cease-fire; we heard this many times but we need action not just talk,” Ms. Srour said.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.
Christina Goldbaum is The Times’s bureau chief in Beirut, leading coverage of Lebanon and Syria.
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