Hundreds of fleeing families sleep on beaches and streets after Israel’s strikes shake Beirut

Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of families displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs after the area was pummeled overnight by the heaviest Israeli airstrikes in nearly a year of limited conflict are sleeping in public squares and beaches or in their cars in the city center. Many had made a fruitless circuit around overflowing shelters set up in schools. On the roads leading to the mountains above the capital, lines of people could be seen early in the morning making an exodus on foot, holding infants and whatever belongings they could carry. The U.N. says the number of people displaced by the conflict has more than doubled in a week, with over 211,000 now displaced.