Thousands flee Beirut suburbs after unprecedented Israeli evacuation order

Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times on Mar 5, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

BEIRUT — The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for entire neighborhoods of Beirut's southern suburbs, sparking pandemonium as hundreds of thousands of people joined a panicked exodus out toward Lebanon's north.

On Thursday afternoon, the Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesman told residents of the Dahieh — the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital — to "save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately."

The evacuation order was unprecedented in scale, encompassing a 6-square-mile, densely populated residential area with hundreds of thousands of people. Minutes later, motorists filled the roads, with cars, trucks, scooters, motorcycles — anything with wheels — jostling in a flurry of honking and shouting in a bid to get out to the highways.

Gaggles of residents gathered at a media vantage point in the nearby hills, many of them keeping one eye on Dahieh for sign of an attack and another on their phone for updates on social media.

"Dahieh? There's not going to be a Dahieh any more," said one young man as he talked to a family member on the phone.

Another man shouted on the phone, exhorting a family member to leave and that he would go in and take his stead.

"You come here and I'll go in your place. If I die, I die," he said.

The latest round of Israeli-Hezbollah conflict was triggered by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, now in its sixth day. Hezbollah, a predominantly Shiite Islamist group, launched attacks on Israeli targets in retaliation for the attacks on its longtime ally and supporter.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hard-line figure in the government who has long called for Arab expulsion, tweeted on X on Thursday that the Dahieh "will look like Khan [Yunis]," a reference to the Gaza city all but razed by the Israeli military's operations against Hamas.

Smotrich added that while Israelis are returning to areas of northern Israel "to flourish and thrive," the government had "issued evacuation notices to the residents of southern Lebanon and the Dahieh neighborhood."

"Hezbollah made a mistake, and it will pay dearly for it," he wrote. "We are cutting off the head of the octopus in Iran, and in parallel, we are also severing the arm of Hezbollah."