Bissan Fakih, a campaigner for Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa team, describes driving south through Lebanon during a fragile ceasefire to check on her family home in Tyre.

The journey required crossing a hastily built replacement bridge at Qasmiye after Israeli air strikes destroyed the original crossing over the Litani River. She arrived at the site of an air strike on Tyre’s waterfront that had occurred minutes before a ceasefire took effect at midnight on 17 April. Rescue workers on the fifth day of operations said 26 people had been killed in the attack.

Israeli forces have maintained a security zone several kilometres inside Lebanese territory and have been destroying civilian infrastructure and homes within it. More than one million people have been displaced since 2 March by what Amnesty describes as overly broad mass evacuation orders. At least 2,567 people have been killed in Lebanon since the outbreak of the current conflict, including 103 healthcare workers.

Dozens of first responders have died in air strikes since 2 March 2026. A journalist, Amal Khalil, was killed in an air strike the day before Fakih’s visit, despite the nominal ceasefire.

Fakih packed family photographs and personal belongings from the empty house before locking up. She describes kissing the door frame and asking the house to wait for the family’s return, then immediately second-guessing the gesture as a superstitious acknowledgement that return was not certain. Source: Amnesty International, 1 May 2026