Trump’s War Has Left Lebanon’s Capital Looking Like a War Zone — Again

Beirut has known war before. The city lived through a 15-year civil war, multiple Israeli invasions, and a catastrophic port explosion that devastated its commercial district in 2020. Now, for the latest time in a history marked by recurring tragedy, the Lebanese capital is once again absorbing the consequences of a conflict whose origins lie far beyond its borders. President Donald Trump’s campaign against Iran has made Beirut a battlefield again, and its people are paying the price.
The Israeli military’s evacuation orders covered the entire Dahiyeh district, a southern Beirut neighborhood of more than 600,000 people that serves as a Hezbollah stronghold. The orders gave residents little time to gather their belongings. A Red Cross spokesperson described scenes of panic and confusion, with families fleeing on foot with nothing but the clothes on their backs. When Israeli jets struck the evacuated area, they found a ghost town of abandoned buildings that were quickly reduced to rubble and fire.
The scale of displacement across Lebanon has been staggering. Over one million people have been forced from their homes, with hundreds of thousands already displaced from southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley before the Dahiyeh orders were issued. Lebanon’s national infrastructure, already severely strained by years of economic crisis and political dysfunction, has been overwhelmed. The Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations are struggling to respond to the scale of need.
Hezbollah has continued fighting from within and around the displaced population. The organization has fired rockets at communities in northern Israel and wounded Israeli soldiers near the border with anti-tank missiles. The UN peacekeeping mission has reported that its Ghanaian battalion headquarters was struck, critically wounding two soldiers. Hezbollah has maintained its military operations despite the destruction of its Dahiyeh stronghold, demonstrating an organizational resilience that Israel’s planners may have underestimated.
Lebanon’s government, which has minimal effective control over Hezbollah’s military activities, watches the destruction of its capital with a mixture of helplessness and despair. The country’s recovery from previous catastrophes has been painfully slow. Recovery from this one — whenever it begins — will be even harder. Trump has promised that the defeat of Hezbollah and Iran’s government will ultimately benefit Lebanon. For the million people sleeping away from home tonight, that promised future feels very distant.