Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I am the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine.

It is our great privilege to be joined today by the journalist Rania Kahlik. She is a host of dispatches on Breakthrough News.

She's also a contributor to various publications,

including the nation, fairness and accuracy in reporting, The Intercept Electronic Intifada,

and more. She joins us today from Beirut, Lebanon, which is currently under persistent Israeli bombing.

Rania, thank you so much for joining us here on current affairs today.

Nathan, it's a pleasure to be on with you.

Well, let's start with the situation that your country is presently in, and perhaps you could tell us from your view there, what is it like in Lebanon right now?

Well, in Beirut, which is where I'm talking to you from right now, it's very tense.

Part of the suburb of the city, what you'll hear often in the media called the southern

suburbs of Beirut or Dahi is basically emptied of people mostly because a couple weeks

ago the Israelis gave these displacement orders for people to leave that area. About 500,000

people live there. And they've been just bombing it relentlessly, promising to turn it

into Gaza. This is an area of the suburbs of Beirut that's like predominantly Shia votes for

Hezbollah because we have elections here and Hezbollah does run in those elections.

So Israel is basically attacking that area for that reason. And then the rest of Beirut in past wars, except for maybe 2024,

but even then, except for a few exceptions, is typically sort of safer. And that's where

displaced people will go kind of like take shelter in. But just last night, I mean, I don't know

when this is going to come out, but I'm talking to you on March 18th, which is Wednesday,

just last night, I mean,

the Israelis unleashed a pretty heavy barrage of violence on central Beirut, which is typically

considered a safe area. They did four air strikes or will strike. Some of them might be coming from

...