Amidst the sounds of bombs and distant gunfire, we heard church bells toll in the suburbs of Beirut. Then we saw a large group of people dressed in black gathering.
They had to come to Sacred Heart Church, a Maronite place of worship, to commemorate the death of a man named Sami Ghafari.
A 66-year-old man was killed in a drone strike in a southern village Lebanon.
Locals say that Sami Ghafari was killed while tending his vegetables
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The meeting also commemorated the death of the village.
The community, Alma Al Shaab, is home to around 200 Christian families, all of whom have been forced to flee their homes.
The last group of evacuees, numbering 83, was sent out of the area by UN peacekeepers that morning – most headed straight for the church.
We spoke to resident Elias Konsol as he got out of his car. The past nine days have been “horrendous,” he said.
“Every day we go to bed, we don’t know in the morning whether we’ll be alive,” he said.
“There was a moment,” I asked, “when you thought, “Okay, should we leave?”
Elias said the past nine days had been ‘terrible’
“Yesterday, midnight,” he replied. “We thought they were coming in.”
“Who, the Israelites?”
“Yes, (the Israelis) are coming to Alma,” Elias said. “What do we do?”
A cloud of sadness hung over the church and we saw the members of the congregation struggling to control their emotions. Many looked completely exhausted.
The funeral took place at a Maronite church in the suburbs of Beirut
On March 1, residents of Alma Al Shaab rang the bells of the village church after learning that the Israeli military had issued an evacuation order requiring them to leave.
But many refused to leave their homes.
When the Israelis began bombing the village, residents brought their blankets and mattresses and packed them into the hall below the church.
The villagers took shelter under their church
Joe Sayya, a villager, told us that they have tried to adapt.
“Every day at five or six o’clock, we used to go to the hall under the church, this is the time when there are shelling and attacks around the village even during the day,” he said.
“We could only check our houses and go back. We couldn’t do anything else.”
‘We are not 83 martyrs’
Sami Ghaffari’s death seems to be the final straw. Residents say he was killed by an Israeli missile while watering vegetables in his garden
The mayor of Alma Al Shaab is called Shady Saya and he looks bewildered. He has lost a friend, as well as his village.
“What’s going through your mind?” I asked.
“The loss, the loss of our land, the loss of our dignity, begins with Lebanon Alma (Al Shab).”
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UN forces helped evacuate the remaining residents
The mayor said the rest of the villagers decided to flee when the local UN peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) commander told them they could not be rescued.
“They said you have the right to stay, but we’re not responsible if you do. It’s too dangerous. We asked the priest to contact the Vatican, (and they said) it’s up to you, so everyone left us.
“So we decided that we are not 83 martyrs.”
Mayor Shadi Sayah showed off a cross tattoo and Lebanon’s patron saint
He then took off his jacket and showed me a tattoo of a cross and the patron saint of Lebanon on his left forearm.
“We believe in saints, not weapons,” he said. “What we want is peace.”
The meeting at Sacred Heart Church is one story of many – from more than a week of war. But the conflict has created a humanitarian catastrophe that has turned the nation upside down.
