Israeli bombardment devastates Tyre, Lebanon, killing civilians and displacing thousands

Tyre’s schools filled with displaced families, its ambulances came under fire, and its streets emptied into shelters as near-daily bombardments turned one of Lebanon’s oldest coastal cities into a place of flight rather than routine.

Known locally as Sour, Tyre sits about 83 kilometers south of Beirut and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO describes it as the ancient Phoenician city that once ruled the sea and founded colonies such as Cadiz and Carthage. Its Roman and Phoenician remains made the city a place of heritage and tourism before the war, but repeated Israeli strikes have now placed densely packed civilian life inside a grinding emergency.

The scale of destruction in Lebanon widened sharply after the conflict escalated on 8 October 2023. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Lebanon was facing the largest escalation of conflict since the 2006 Lebanon war. It reported that 1,030 people were killed between 16 and 27 September 2024 alone, including 87 children and 156 women. By 7 October 2024, the toll had risen to 2,083 killed and 9,869 injured since the start of hostilities, with 608,509 people internally displaced.

Tyre was among the places most directly affected. Israeli military evacuation warnings reached neighborhoods and surrounding areas, forcing families to decide quickly whether to leave or risk staying behind. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said more than 110,000 people were displaced within Lebanon from the onset of hostilities until August 2024, and that 97% of them came from Bint Jbeil, Marjaayoun and Tyre governorates. In Tyre, the pressure on civilians was visible in the city’s public buildings, where people fleeing bombardment crowded into improvised shelter.

The war also pushed Lebanon’s education system into crisis. Save the Children said on 9 October 2024 that half of Lebanon’s public schools had been turned into shelters for displaced people. In one such school, Khalid Jumblatt Public School, an Egyptian baker from Tyre was sheltering after fleeing Israeli attacks, a sign of how quickly ordinary lives were compressed into classrooms and corridors meant for lessons, not mattresses and emergency supplies.

The danger did not stop with the airstrikes themselves. On 23 October 2024, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said a Lebanese Red Cross team responding to airstrike casualties in Tyre came under fire, damaging two ambulances and injuring one rescuer. In a city that has endured for millennia, the bombardment has eroded the basic rhythms of urban life, leaving schools, hospitals and shelters to absorb the weight of a war that has become part of daily survival.