Hundreds of fleeing families sleep on beaches and streets after Israel's strikes shake Beirut

BEIRUT (AP) — Smoke was still rising from Beirut’s southern suburbs Saturday morning, visible to many of the families who had fled their homes there the night before to escape Israel’s massive bombardment.

It had been a harrowing night — getting out amid earthshaking explosions, looking in vain for space in one of the overflowing schools-turned-shelters. By the morning, hundreds of families were sleeping in public squares, on beaches or in cars around Beirut.

Lines of people trudged up to the mountains above the Lebanese capital, holding infants and a few belongings.

Overnight, Israel unleashed a series of strikes on various parts of Dahiyeh, the predominantly Shiite collection of suburbs on Beirut’s southern edge where tens of thousands of residents live. The biggest blasts to hit Beirut in nearly a year of conflict killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah Friday.

The assault was part of a rapid escalation of Israeli strikes the past week that has killed more than 700 people in Lebanon. Israel has vowed to cripple Hezbollah and put an end to 11 months of its fire onto Israeli territory in what Nasrallah described as a “support front” for his ally Hamas in Gaza.

The people escaping Friday night’s mayhem joined tens of thousands who have fled to Beirut and other areas of southern Lebanon the past week to escape Israel’s bombardment.

For many residents of Dahiyeh, the forced evacuation was disconcertingly familiar.

Some were Lebanese who had lived through the bruising monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, when Israel leveled large parts of the Beirut suburbs. Others were Syrians who had taken refuge from the long civil war in their own country.

Fatima Chahine, a Syrian refugee, slept on the Ramlet al-Bayda public beach in Beirut with her family and hundreds of strangers. The night before she, her husband and their two children had piled onto a motorcycle and raced out of Dahiyeh, with “bombing below us and strikes above us.”

“Thank God, no one was wounded,” she said.

The government has opened up schools in Beirut to take in the displaced. But Syrians have reported that some sites turn them away to reserve the few spaces for Lebanese. Chahine said her family came directly to the beach.

“We only want a place where our children won’t be afraid,” she said. “We fled from the war in Syria in 2011 because of the children and we came here, and now the same thing is happening again.”

Since Monday, some 22,331 Syrians in Lebanon have crossed back into Syria, along with 22,117 Lebanese, according to Lebanese authorities.

Chahine said returning is not an option for her family; she is from an opposition area and so could face reprisals from the Syrian government.

At the beach, the displaced were spread out over the sidewalk or in cars parked by the curb. Others were camped out in beach pagodas or on blankets in the sand.

“We spent more than three hours going in circles between schools and shelters and we didn’t find one with room,” said Talal Ahmad Jassaf, a Lebanese man who slept on the beach with his family. He said he is considering going to the relative safety of Syria. But he worries about airstrikes on the road between Beirut and Damascus.

The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said this week's escalation had more than doubled the number of people displaced by the conflict in Lebanon. There are now over 211,000 people displaced, including some of the humanitarian workers who should be responding to the crisis, it said. Around 85,000 of them are sleeping in shelters, it said.

“Humanitarian capacities to respond have been severely overstretched,” it added.

Displaced people sleeping outside in Beirut largely told The Associated Press that they had not received assistance from any humanitarian organization.

A stadium in the seaside neighborhood of Manara owned by the Nejmeh soccer club opened its doors to the displaced, who spent the night sleeping on bleachers.

Among them was Mariam Darwish, her husband and five children. She fled her home in Dahiyeh earlier in the week when the first Israeli strikes hit there.

Darwish said they had received water from the soccer club but that no organization had brought food, blankets or other supplies.

“People are helping each other out, family and friends are getting things for each other,” she said.

She and her husband had fled during the 2006 war, when their oldest son was a baby, and returned to their home when the war ended. They hope their house will still be standing to return to this time, she said.

“We’re worried about our children and the schools, that they’ll lose out on their future,” she said. “What can we do? We can only say thank God.”

She added, “May the resistance be victorious.” At the time of the interview, Hezbollah had not yet confirmed Nasrallah’s death.

Despite their battered-down circumstances, others also struck a defiant tone.

Jamal Hussein fled Dahiyeh at 3 a.m. with his extended family amid ongoing bombing and spent the night sleeping on the seaside promenade in Beirut’s upscale Ain Mreisseh district.

“Of course we aren’t afraid for ourselves, but we have children,” he said. “We are steadfast and ready to sacrifice more than this.”

Families sit on the ground in Martyrs' square after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

A child sleeps on the ground in Beirut's Martyrs' square after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Families carry their belongings in Beirut's Martyrs' square after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Families sit on the ground in Martyrs' square after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Families sit on the ground in Martyrs' square after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Smoke rises as a building collapses in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People check a damaged building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Choueifat, south east of Beirut, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People check a damaged building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Choueifat, south east of Beirut, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Families gather in Martyrs' square after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — European, Arab and Islamic nations have launched an initiative to strengthen support for a Palestinian state and its institutions, and prepare for a future after the war in Gaza and escalating conflict in Lebanon, Norway’s foreign minister said Friday.

Espen Barth Eide told The Associated Press that “there is a growing consensus in the international community from Western countries, from Arab countries, from the Global South, that we need to establish a Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government, a Palestinian state — and the Palestinian state has to be recognized.”

Eide said many issues need to be addressed, including the security interests of Israel and the Palestinians, recognition and normalization of relations after decades of conflict and the demobilization of Hamas as a military group.

“These are pieces of a bigger puzzle,” Norway’s chief diplomat said. “And you can’t just come in there with one of these pieces, because it only works if all the pieces are laid in place.”

But even if the puzzle is completed, it's unlikely to gain traction with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, Eide believes that after decades of failed or stalled negotiations, “we need to take a new approach” to achieving an independent Palestinian state.

To accelerate work on these issues, Eide said almost 90 countries attended a meeting Thursday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s current gathering of world leaders. He and Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister co-chaired the session to launch “The Global Alliance for the Implementation of a Palestinian State and a Two-State Solution.”

“We have to see how we can come out of this deadlock and try to use this deep crisis also as an opportunity to move forward,” Eide told a U.N. Security Council meeting on Gaza later Friday.

Norway is the guarantor of the 1993 Oslo Accords, hailed as a breakthrough in the decades-long conflict between Arabs and Jews, which created the Palestinian Authority and set up self-rule areas in the Palestinian Authority. Eide said more than 30 years later, Israel’s “occupation” is continuing, and there there are no negotiations leading to a final settlement and an independent Palestinian state — which led to Norway’s decision in May to recognize a Palestinian state.

Now, 149 of the U.N.’s 193 member nations have recognized a Palestinian state. Eide urged all countries “to contribute to universal recognition” and strengthen Palestinian institutions so they live up to the expectations of people in the West Bank and are prepared to return to Gaza: “We want one Palestine, not different Palestines,” he said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that his country, the joint Islamic-Arab ministerial committee, Norway and the European Union launched the alliance “because we feel responsible to act to change the reality of the conflict without delay.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged all countries to take practical measures “to bring about the free Palestine next to a secure Israel.”

Borrell said on X that the first meetings of the alliance would be in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Brussels. Borrell asked rhetorically of anyone who opposes a two-state solution: What is the solution, and can it be implemented? He stressed that work on this initiative will move ahead quickly.

Eide said this new effort is built on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, “but updated to today’s reality.”

The 2002 initiative, endorsed by the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, offered Israel normalized relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967.

He said efforts started long ago to build the institutions of a Palestinian state.

“It’s difficult,” Eide said. “Their hands are tied in many ways. We’re seeing an increasing amount of illegal settlements and settle violence.”

“But still, there is an embryonic institution there that we have to strengthen,” he said.

Eide said he chaired a meeting Thursday of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee for the Building of Palestinian Institutions, with the United States, Canada, the EU and many Mideast and European countries contributing.

“None of these tools will solve the problem on their own, and we never pretended that, but we’re trying to build a body of instruments that will take us forward to a peaceful settlement,” Eide said. “And I am convinced it will happen here.”

See more of AP’s coverage of the U.N. General Assembly at https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations

Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide speaks during an interview at the Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide speaks during an interview at the Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

FILE - Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Jan. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)