AIN ED DELB, Lebanon—Two days after Israeli airstrikes targeted this small village in southern Lebanon, bodies were still being pulled from the rubble. At least 50 people were killed and more than 70 were wounded in the attack on Sunday, which hit a large apartment block, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. But the stench of death lingered, suggesting that more victims may remain buried under debris. Two excavators dug through collapsed concrete walls and twisted steel, aided by a handful of volunteers.

On Monday, Israel’s military launched what it described as a “limited, localized, and targeted” ground invasion into Lebanon, aimed at dismantling the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group and returning evacuated Israeli citizens to border towns near Lebanon. Around 60,000 Israelis left their homes in response to persistent Hezbollah rocket fire following the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that launched Israel’s war on Gaza; Hezbollah and Hamas are allies.

Intense Israeli airstrikes have continued across Lebanon, including in Beirut. On Tuesday, Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to the invasion, according to the Israeli military. Israel also ordered the evacuation of residents from around 30 border villages in southern and eastern Lebanon, instructing them to move north of the Awali River, just beyond Ain Ed Delb.

Since the airstrike, the village has largely emptied of people—except for those still digging up the dead. Residents no longer feel safe as the front line inches closer. Homes have been abandoned, and roads are eerily quiet. In a small grove, a lone man harvested olives, but most villagers fled in haste, fearing that Israel’s ground invasion would be accompanied by further airstrikes in the area.

Locals told Foreign Policy that there was “no Hezbollah” in Ain Ed Delb. The village is mostly home to Christians and Sunni Muslims, and Hezbollah is a Shiite group. But several families had been hosting displaced people from further south, especially women and children.

In the past two weeks, more than 1,000 people in Lebanon have been killed and more than 6,000 injured. Monday was Lebanon’s deadliest day since its 1975-1990 civil war, with nearly 600 people killed in Israeli bombings across the country. More than 1 million people have since been displaced from their homes, according to Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad.

Down the hill from Ain Ed Delb lies Saida, a port city that was once a bustling tourist hub and has now become a transit center for those fleeing southern towns. On Tuesday, one of the city’s bus stations was packed with displaced people, most of them Syrian refugees. Many slept on the sidewalk; children were wrapped in thin blankets, and mothers pleaded for milk for their babies. Thousands of other people stayed in schools-turned-shelters, uncertain of what might happen next—and where they could possibly flee.

A child is among the Syrian familes taking refuge at a bus station in Saida on Oct. 1.

Displaced Syrian families rest at a bus station in Saida on Oct. 1.

Syrian children interact as they wait with their families at a bus station in Saida on Oct. 1.

Dozens of people injured in the Ain Ed Delb airstrike were being treated in Saida’s hospitals, while others lay in basement morgues. Abir al-Habab, a nurse who requested that her hospital not be named for fear of airstrikes, explained that clinics across Lebanon were trained for mass casualty events following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks against Israel, aware that Lebanon could be dragged into the conflict. But she admits that the scale of casualties in the last week was overwhelming.

“The ground invasion will cripple our health care system,” Habab said.

Inside the clinic, patients’ stories were harrowing. Eight-year-old Zahra Assi was playing outside when the strike hit Ain Ed Delb. She was with other children from her neighborhood, and they chased each other between trees, giggling. Then the bomb fell. Assi survived with severe leg injuries, but her mother and two brothers were killed. Her father is still missing.

Eight-year-old Zahra Assi rests in a hospital room in Ain Ed Delb on Oct. 1 with her grandmother at her side.

Originally from a village just south of the coastal city of Sour, Assi’s family had fled their home a week earlier, seeking refuge in Ain Ed Delb, where they had friends. They were staying outside in the apartment block’s garden because they thought it would be safe.

At the hospital, Assi’s grandparents sat by her side; they did not have the heart to tell her about her about the deaths in her family yet. “We keep telling her that they are recovering in another hospital,” her 60-year-old grandfather, Ali Kanso, said. He admitted that he feels guilty lying to Assi but said she would not be able to handle the news. “She needs to recover first.”

Personal effects seen among the rubble in Ain Ed Delb on Oct. 1.

Kanso said he was angry with Israel and that there now were no safe places left in Lebanon. “They come here to kill civilians, children,” he said of the Israeli military. “I don’t want war, and I don’t want to fight, but if they try to invade our whole country, I will fight,” he said angrily. Then he turned to Assi, smiling softly at his granddaughter.

Another patient, 37-year-old Sarah Badreddin, lost her two sons, aged 13 and 7, in the same attack. Fleeing violence in Nabatiye, southeast of Aid Ed Delb, she also sought refuge in the village. Now she is alone. Her face was freckled by shrapnel, and her left eye was covered by a patch; doctors said it was lost. Badreddin’s blood drained into a container through a tube in her abdomen. She said she has no remaining family in Saida, and that she is too injured to attend her sons’ funerals.

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Analysis

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The Israeli military has not disclosed the intended target of the strike on Ain Ed Delb, but residents from the village—many of them now in Saida—said that the block of apartments that it hit was home to mostly Christian and Sunni families. They suggested that the strike was intended to stir sectarian tensions in the village. Sources speaking to Al Arabiya speculated that Ahmed Awarki, the head of Hezbollah’s security committee in Saida, may have been Israel’s target. Neither theory has been confirmed.

Mahmoud, a 57-year-old car dealer, was also injured in the attack and lost half of his right foot. He did not want to share his full name for security reasons. When airstrikes struck his home in Nabatiye, Mahmoud said he and his family were invited by a friend and co-worker in Ain Ed Delb—a Christian man—to stay to escape the danger zone. Mahmoud survived the strike, but his wife and his friend did not. Despite his injury, Mahmoud said he helped drag others out from under the rubble after the strike.

Mahmoud recovers in a hospital in Ain Ed Delb on Oct. 1, after being injured in an airstrike. Next to him is his daughter, Fatima.

“I feel so guilty,” Mahmoud said from his hospital bed as his eyes welled with tears. His daughter Fatima, a 20-year-old medical student, stood by his side.

Airstrikes have grown more frequent in Saida as well. On Tuesday, Israeli planes bombed the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in the city, killing at least seven people and wounding many others, according to figures shared with hospitals in the city.

Workers dig for bodies among the rubble in Ain Ed Delb on Oct. 1.

“People across Lebanon are worried that the invasion won’t be limited after all,” said a medic, working in Ain Ed Delb two days after the strike, who did not want to reveal their name due to the insecurity of war. “I’ve seen people torn to pieces here. I’m angry. If you ask me—I want revenge.”