Posted on by

IDF and Hezbollah fight in Lebanon after an Iranian missile attack

IDF and Hezbollah fight in Lebanon after an Iranian missile attack

Amid Israeli bombings and the displacement of large parts of the country, few people in Lebanon have been able to sleep through the night in recent days.

Residents told NBC News this morning about their experiences, including cheers and celebratory gunfire in the streets of Beirut after yesterday’s Iranian attack on Israel.

“We didn’t sleep all night,” Eliane Matta, a media coordinator who lives near the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh, told NBC News. Instead, she said she spent the early hours on her balcony watching buildings burn in the distance. “Honestly, we’re not scared anymore.” “I have to stay home, I have no other place and no other choice.” said Matta, 45.

Matta said it was also the cheering of people on the street that kept her awake. Some filled the city’s streets to celebrate Iran’s retaliation against Israel following its escalated attacks in Lebanon, including the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Wissam Hannouch, a 35-year-old bank employee who also lives near Dahieh, said he also had “another sleepless night.”

“The evening began with news of Iranian ballistic missiles in Tel Aviv. And then the cheerful machine gun shots that pierced the night sky,” he said. Then, after hearing a “big explosion,” he too ran to his balcony to see “a blazing fireball with smoke” in Dahieh.

Hannouch said he doesn’t feel “real fear, as we know deep down that the bombings are aimed at very specific targets,” referring to Hezbollah, but he said he fears for those affected by the attacks Israel were expelled.