Amid the sound of bombs and distant gunfire, we heard church bells ripple through Beirut’s suburbs. Then we saw a large group of people congregate, all dressed in black.
They had to come to a Maronite place of worship, Sacred Heart church, to commemorate the death of man called Sami Ghafari.
The 66-year-old had been killed in a drone strike in a village in south Lebanon.
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The congregation was also commemorating the death of the village itself.
The community, Alma al Shaab, is home to some 200 Christian families who have all been forced to flee their homes.
The last group of evacuees, numbering 83, had been guided out of the area by UN peacekeepers that morning – the majority proceeding straight to the church.
We spoke to resident Elias Konsol as he got out his car. He said the past nine days had been “terrifying”.
“Every day that we sleep, we don’t know in the morning if we will be alive,” he said.
“Was there a moment,” I asked, “when you thought, ‘right, we need to leave?'”
“Yesterday, at midnight,” he replied. “We thought that they were coming inside.”
“Who, the Israelis?”
“Yes, [the Israelis] are coming to Alma,” said Elias. “What will we do?”
A cloud of sorrow hung over the church and we watched members of the congregation struggle to control their emotions. Many seemed completely exhausted.
On 1 March, the residents of Alma al Shaab rang the bells of the village church when they learnt the Israeli military had issued an evacuation order requiring them to leave.
But many refused to leave their homes.
When the Israelis started to bombard the village, residents brought their blankets and bedding and packed themselves into the hall beneath the church.
One villager, Joe Sayyah, told us they had tried to adapt.
“Every day at five or six, we went under the church to the hall. This is the time when the shelling and strikes would happen all around the village, even during the day,” he said.
“We could only check on our homes and come back. We couldn’t do anything else.”
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‘We are not 83 martyrs to be’
It seems the death of Sami Ghafari was the final straw. He was killed, say residents, by an Israeli missile as he was watering vegetables in his garden
The mayor of Alma al Shaab is called Shady Saayah and he looked distraught. He has lost a friend, as well as his village.
“What is going through your mind?” I asked.
“Loss, the loss of our land, the loss of our dignity, Lebanon starts from Alma [al Shaab].”
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The mayor said the remaining villagers had decided to flee when the local commander of the UN peacekeeping detachment (UNIFIL) said they could not protect them.
“He said you have the right to stay, but if you do we are not responsible. It is very dangerous. We asked the priest to contact the Vatican, [and they said] it is up to you, so everyone left us.
“So we decided we are not 83 martyrs to be.”
He then took off his jacket and showed me a tattoo of a cross and the patron saint of Lebanon on his left forearm.
“We believe in saints, not weapons,” he said. “All we want is peace.”
This gathering at the Sacred Heart church is one story of many – from little more than one week of war. But this conflict has created a humanitarian disaster that has turned a nation upside down.
