A man in south Lebanon cares for pets left behind as residents flee Israeli strikes

Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — A dog clings to Hussein Hamza inside a car as he pans his camera around to show the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon.

“Poor thing. Look at this, he’s clinging to me out of fear,” Hamza says in the video he posted online. “A missile hit here,” he said, his voice shaking.

As Israel pummels southern Lebanon with airstrikes, tens of thousands of residents are fleeing their homes in fear. But Hamza is staying. His mission is to care for the dogs and other animals left behind.

He runs an animal shelter that houses 200 dogs in the village of Kfour. Recently, he has also been driving around towns and villages in the south, looking for stray animals and abandoned pets to feed.

“I opened bags of food and left them water. I’m relying on God,” said Hamza as he spread food hundreds of meters away from the shelter he runs, in case the dogs need to escape the facility when airstrikes come too close.

Israel has dramatically stepped up its airstrikes across many parts of Lebanon, which it says target Hezbollah and its weapons. However over a 1,000 people have been killed in the country in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The Lebanese government says the fighting may have displaced up to a million people, although the U.N. estimate is around 200,000.

With his town under constant bombardment, Hamza, 56, refused to abandon the animals in his care.

Despite the danger, Hamza drives around looking for stray animals and pets left behind by families, many of them abandoned behind locked gates. He brings them food, and then posts the videos online.

“Come here, come here! I got you food,” Hamza called to a dog hiding behind a fence in one of his online videos. “At least unleash your dogs,” he pleads with residents in his videos. “The dog owners had to escape on foot and couldn’t take them.”

In the midst of the chaos, Hamza has become a lifeline for many who reach out to him, hoping he can get food to their pets.

“This nice man called me, crying. They (the family) left the dogs behind the fence, and they couldn’t take them,” he said. “I just got the dogs dry food.”

Hamza’s journey has been perilous. On more than one occasion, he’s narrowly avoided airstrikes.

His work extends beyond dogs. “We found a chicken on the road,” Hamza explained in another clip. “It flew from a pickup truck. I will take it home.”

Hamza’s shelter has attracted support online, allowing him to buy 200 bags of dog food to distribute to the dogs in the region.

Even so, the danger keeps mounting. “I hope someone can take some load off my shoulders,” Hamza said as he picked up an elderly stray dog off the street and into his car.

“God help people. At the time of a strike, people lose it and don’t know what to do,” he said while dropping off food and water in remote areas.

With an Israeli ground invasion of south Lebanon looking increasingly likely, Hamza worries about what comes next.

But for now, his focus remains on the animals.

“As long as I can reach the dogs and leave them food and water, I will not leave,” he said. “I have a responsibility. I can’t leave them.”