Lebanese live in fear of military escalation between Hezbollah, Israel

Beirut: Hassan Ghayyad, the owner of a kids' apparel boutique in Marjeyoun, southern Lebanon, has observed a significant drop in customer traffic at his shop lately.

"For the first time since October 8 (last year), residents in this area have stopped their purchases entirely for the past few days," Ghayyad told Xinhua news agency.

The shop owner attributed the downturn to the heightened tensions between Hezbollah and Israel in recent days. Israel threatened to launch a military operation that will make Hezbollah pay a heavy price after a rocket attack in the Golan Heights killed 12 youngsters and wounded several others.

Hezbollah said it had "absolutely nothing to do with the incident" and dismissed the allegations as false, while insisting on responding without restrictions to any Israeli aggression against Lebanon and its resistance.

The escalating series of events is casting a pall of tense atmosphere over the southern regions of Lebanon.

Ghayyad said most shop owners and commercial establishments in his area have closed their doors, and traffic has decreased significantly. Meanwhile, many families have moved to other regions, for fear of a potential military flare-up.

Picnickers and swimmers, once fixtures on southern beaches, have now vanished, and a notable displacement trend has been observed in most towns.

Salah Sabrawi, the mayor of Abbasiyeh in the western sector of the border area, told Xinhua, "The situation in southern Lebanon is unstable, and around 5 to 8 percent of the residents were displaced over the past 48 hours due to recent military developments."

"We are monitoring the situation before thinking about displacement again, especially since we have adapted to our situation, and it is not easy to experience displacement a second time," Lama Al-Hajj, who was displaced eight months ago from a border village to the southern city of Tyre, told Xinhua. "But if the war expands, we may have to move again."

For Hanan Abu Ali, a housewife from the southeast town of Marjeyoun, keeping an eye on the evolving dynamics between Israel and Hezbollah has become a daily ritual.

"My family of five and I follow the developments almost continuously through social media. We can no longer differentiate between the correct and fake news, but we are almost certain that the mutual military strikes have become an inevitable reality," she told Xinhua.

Jihan Hamdan, 50, from the southeast town of Shebaa, had already packed her bags with some of her family's identification papers and a few summer clothes.

"We are baffled and do not know where to go, as danger is everywhere in these difficult times," she said.

Echoing Hamdan's sentiment, Nabil Assi, a university student in his twenties, told Xinhua, "We are now facing the unknown. The military strikes can reach most areas, and the war is expanding and may go out of control. We do not know what awaits us, as the future is bleak."

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.