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The Israeli military told residents of the Christian sector in the southern Lebanon city of Tyre that they need to evacuate. Israel says, without providing proof, that it is targeting a Hezbollah presence there. NPR's Jane Arraf and Jawad Rizkallah were in Tyre this week and have this report.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: We're in the antiquities neighborhood of Tyre not far from the Roman port Alexander the Great conquered more than 2,000 years ago. There's an Israeli drone overhead as we walk past apartment buildings hit by Israeli airstrikes, now piles of pulverized rubble.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRONE BUZZING)
ARRAF: Israel said it was targeting Hezbollah. On one street, there's nothing standing. Even the dead trees are covered in concrete dust.
ALI ALRATI: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "It destroyed everything. Look, that building fell and that building," says Ali Alrati (ph), a policeman taking us around the deserted neighborhood.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRONE BUZZING)
ARRAF: There are almost always drones, but this one is flying unusually low. And in this part of Tyre, where Israel has warned residents to evacuate, it's particularly unsettling.
ALRATI: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "You can hear they're right above us," Alrati says.
And they're saying it's too dangerous. We have to leave.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRONE BUZZING)
ARRAF: We move to another neighborhood. It's closer to the old city, which has not yet been evacuated. Across the road is the Mediterranean. The sparkling water is such a deep, bright blue, it almost hurts your eyes. A four-story building once stood here. Now there are only chunks of concrete, shards of metal and furniture smashed in pieces. This was Karrit Ice Cream, owned by a business family so well-known, the neighborhood is named after them.
ALRATI: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "It was around a long time," says Alrati, the policeman. An old family. The ice cream was famous and tasty.
HASSAN SABBAGH: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Hassan Sabbagh has an air conditioning shop around the corner. He didn't have the money to leave the neighborhood.
"Where are we supposed to go?" he asks.
He and his wife and three young children go home to change and wash clothes. But at night, they roll out mattresses to sleep on the beach in case their building is bombed. Sabbagh is carrying a large container of shredded chicken with almonds on rice that his neighbor made for them.
SABBAGH: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: (Non-English language spoken). Chicken.
SABBAGH: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Ah, your neighbor.
"If we were in Sidon or Beirut and we were in the streets, some people would say, you're not from here, leave, you know?" he says.
SABBAGH: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "Here, it's a community."
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES SPLASHING)
ARRAF: On the beach in the old city on Sunday, Mimi Istanbouli has slipped off her gold-colored loafers and has her toes in the sand.
MIMI ISTANBOULI: Every day morning, I like to come. It's a nice breeze (laughter).
ARRAF: The silk polka-dot scarf covering her hair flutters in the breeze. The displaced schoolteacher can't charge her phone and doesn't have internet, so she can't teach. She and her ill elderly mother are sleeping in a theater in the city.
ISTANBOULI: Never mind. It's all countries. If we have to stay like this, we stay it. But we don't let Israel to take our countries.
ARRAF: The following day, Israel threatened to attack this last relatively safe corner of Tyre as well, and Istanbuli was displaced again.
Jane Arraf, NPR News, Tyre, Lebanon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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