{"id":47254,"date":"2026-04-11T03:13:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=47254"},"modified":"2026-04-11T03:13:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:13:35","slug":"we-thought-beirut-was-going-to-collapse-recounting-the-deadliest-day-of-the-war-with-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=47254","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We thought Beirut was going to collapse\u2019: recounting the deadliest day of the war with Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Soha Bsat is still trying to make sense of what happened.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Israel<\/a> bombarded the Lebanese capital of Beirut<\/a> on Wednesday, Bsat \u2013 like many others \u2013 was traumatised by the sudden and intense onslaught of violence unleashed on the city where she lives.\u00a0\u201cWe thought all of Beirut was going to collapse on our heads,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bsat, a 55-year-old lawyer, was at her office in the residential neighbourhood of Ramlet al-Bayda. She believed the area \u2013 which is close to the residence of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri \u2013 was safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first explosion rang out just 50\u00a0metres\u00a0away from her office. It was followed by a second, a third and a fourth. “It was all around us. We could see black smoke everywhere through the windows. When we turned on the television, it was chaos.”<\/p>\n

Israel\u00a0later said that it bombed Lebanon<\/a> more than\u00a0100 times\u00a0in less than 10 minutes<\/a>. Several civilian areas in the heart of Beirut were targeted. The strikes occurred just 48 hours after Tehran and Washington called a ceasefire, when\u00a0many in the country believed they were safe.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/span>Sidelined by Trump\u2019s truce with Iran, Israel pummels Lebanon \u2013 then agrees to talks<\/a><\/p>\n

Scenes of chaos<\/h2>\n

A few streets away,\u00a022-year-old\u00a0student\u00a0Dana Sabeh Ayoun experienced a similar shock. At around\u00a02:15pm she heard\u00a0the sound of missiles whistling overhead.\u00a0“Then the strikes came. It was very\u00a0loud; I\u00a0didn’t understand what was happening.”<\/p>\n

She\u00a0could see a thick column of smoke rise into the sky from her family’s apartment near Beirut\u2019s Corniche el-Mazraa neighbourhood. She filmed the scene from her balcony and immediately called her father, in tears.\u00a0“I was so scared.”<\/p>\n

Dana\u2019s father, Saed Sabeh Ayoun, tried to reassure her on the other end of the line. He was in the suburbs of Dora, northeast of Beirut. “It was chaotic. I could hear my daughter crying; she was in shock. I was very\u00a0worried …\u00a0I waited for things to calm down before going home.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lebanese authorities called on residents to clear the traffic-clogged roads and allow much-needed ambulances to circulate in the city. Israel bombed Lebanon in the middle of the day, when people were at work and schools, as residents went about what they thought was a regular day. Beirut was\u00a0already teeming with displaced people who had fled the southern parts of the country, where\u00a0Hezbollah\u00a0strongholds were regularly targeted by Israel.<\/p>\n

After a brief\u00a0lull, Bsat decided to make her\u00a0way back to the Tallet el-Khayat neighbourhood where she lived. But the respite was short-lived: in the early evening, another building just 150 metres from her home was struck by a missile. “That was the final straw,” she said bitterly. “We were already exhausted and on edge.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

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