No feline left behind! &#8211; Lebanese woman flees Beirut with 40 cats amid regional escalation

Article by Viory

Beirut resident Diana Abbadi brought along her 40 cats with her as she fled the Lebanese capital amid ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in the city’s southern suburb.

Footage filmed on Sunday shows Abbadi caring for and petting her cats at her new temporary shelter.

“We were asleep when the strikes hit during suhoor (pre-dawn meal before the daily fast during Ramadan). We woke up terrified, all of us shaking from fear. It was incredibly hard to gather all the cats. Outside, people were panicking; it felt like Judgment Day, with cars and chaos everywhere,” she stated.

“I was by myself, shaking uncontrollably, with no one to help me. It was no easy task to gather them while trembling and load them into the car. There was no time for cages or carriers, so I just put them directly in the vehicle. I could only grab two bags of sand and food, but thank God, I managed to get them out,” she continued.

She shared that all of her 40 cats were evacuated safely, adding, “I didn’t care about bringing anything with me.”

“I fled in whatever I was wearing, with just one shirt in the car. My only concern was to escape with these souls as I couldn’t bear the thought of losing them if the building was hit,” she stressed.

According to a March 13 statement from Lebanon’s Disaster Management Unit, the total number of displaced people since the start of the Israel-Hezbollah war has reached 830,441, driven by Israeli evacuation orders affecting large areas of the southern suburb and southern Lebanon.

The latest escalation follows Hezbollah’s entry into the conflict, which it frames as ‘revenge’ for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The group has claimed responsibility for multiple operations and says it has resumed attacks ‘in response to continued Israeli aggression against Lebanon’.

Article by Viory