Watch Dateline’s latest episode from Lebanon — a country emerging from the ashes of war with Israel and asking what’s next 25 March at 9.30pm on SBS or SBS On Demand.
Standing in a field of rubble of what used to be his home, Mohamad Sabra can’t hold back his tears and anger.
Before the war, life in Lebanon was difficult but peaceful, even as . Mohamad ran a business importing goods from Türkiye, and his wife Dina worked for a United Nations agency for refugees.
That changed when Israel ramped up its air strikes against the militant group Hezbollah in preparation for a ground invasion of southern Lebanon last October.
On 23 September last year, an Israeli missile hit Mohamad’s house on the outskirts of Zahle, a town 55km east of the capital Beirut. Six of Mohamad’s family members were killed, including his wife, their four-year-old son, and his father.
Mohamad and his mother survived. His eldest son was left physically scarred.
“What happened to us, they call it collateral damage,” he says bitterly.
Mohamad’s wife Dina and their four-year-old son were among the civilian victims of an Israeli air strike on their house. The Israel Defense Forces said they’d targeted Hezbollah infrastructure. Source: SBS / Colin Cosier
On that fateful day, the entire family was home: Mohamad with his wife and two sons, his parents, his sister, and his brother’s family of five.
At 5pm, Israel sent a warning to evacuate. The decision to stay still haunts Mohamad. He says he and his wife weren’t connected to Hezbollah and believed their suburb was free of any militant fighters or infrastructure. They thought the warning was a mistake.
“They sent a message: everyone living near Hezbollah station or military warehouse should leave,” he recalls.
“As you can see, there’s nothing around here, just an unfinished apartment and our house. So we thought why should we go, there’s nothing here. It’s safe here.”
Two hours later, at 7pm, he heard a loud sound and saw a bright flash of light. A missile had struck their home.
Contacted by Dateline, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed responsibility for the strike on Mohamad’s house, saying “the Israeli Air Force struck terror infrastructure”.
However, they did not answer further questions regarding why the house had been targeted and what information the IDF had about its civilian occupants.
Mohamad doesn’t know why his house was targeted by Israel. The decision to stay despite an evacuation order still haunts him. Source: SBS / Colin Cosier
That day became one of the deadliest for Lebanon in the war as Israel launched a series of airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon, saying it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure.
The latest escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began on 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah fired rockets and missiles into Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian group Hamas, which had attacked southern Israel from Gaza the day before.
Between then and November 2024, when , Israeli bombardment displaced 1.3 million Lebanese and killed at least 4,000 people, half of whom were civilians, according to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.
The UN condemned Israel’s large-scale and indiscriminate airstrikes on densely populated areas in Lebanon where people were given “unrealistically short evacuation orders before homes are bombed”.
Across the border, at least 46,000 Israelis were forced to flee their homes and at least 47 civilians and 80 soldiers were killed.
Weakened militarily, Hezbollah is facing the future without its powerful leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Supporters still pay homage to him at the site of the targeted Israeli airstrike that killed him in September 2024 in the Beirut suburb of Dahieh. Source: SBS / Colin Cosier
Although Israel fired the missile that killed his family members, Mohamad also holds Hezbollah responsible for dragging Lebanon into the war by supporting Hamas in Gaza.
“My point of view, you should only protect your land and only what happens inside our country. We don’t have anything related to support any kind of military action outside Lebanon,” he says.
‘Hezbollah isn’t our destiny’
Backed by Iran, Hezbollah started as a violent resistance to Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982. Over decades, it has grown into a formidable militant group and political party, whose influence permeates all aspects of public life from holding seats in the Lebanese parliament to running social services, schools and hospitals.
Until recently, speaking out against Hezbollah was seen by many as unthinkable. But that’s starting to change. After , the group is weaker than ever.
Local shop owner Mahmoud Chouaib went as far as suing the entire Hezbollah leadership over the damage to his business.
During heavy bombardment of his town of Toul, a missile struck an alleged Hezbollah target nearby to Mahmoud’s warehouse. The explosion blew open the doors to the business. Then his warehouse was looted, and he blames Hezbollah supporters for the theft.
“Resistance is an act of protecting, not of attacking. Unfortunately, after the October 7 operation in Gaza, Hezbollah decided unilaterally, without consulting any of the Lebanese, to open a front called the support front. Since you attacked, you gave Israel the pretext to bomb civilians.”
Shop owner Mahmoud Chouaib filed a lawsuit against Hezbollah leadership after the group’s supporters allegedly looted his warehouse. Source: SBS / Colin Cosier
Mahmoud has joined a group that wants to form a political alternative to Hezbollah for Lebanon’s Shia Muslims, who make up around a third of the country’s population.
“Today, the young Shia man has a choice, or in the best options, two choices. Either emigrating or following Hezbollah and becoming a martyr project,” he says.
“We became an environment which exports the youth either for death or for emigration. It’s time for change.”
The founder of the group called Toward The Rescue is prominent Lebanese journalist Mohamad Barakat.
“Our project is to help the Shia come back to the state and stop being an armed set who takes orders from Iran,” he says.
Lebanese journalist Mohamad Barakat started a group that wants to become a political alternative to Hezbollah for Lebanon’s Shia population. Source: SBS / Colin Cosier
It aims to run in next year’s elections for Lebanon’s 128-seat parliament divided between Christians, Muslims, and Druze.
“We have 27 members of parliament who are Shia, if we took two or three or four at this election, it’s enough,” he says.
“If you’re not being optimistic now, with all this destruction and all this change, then you are saying that Hezbollah is our destiny.”
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