After a nightlong vigil, with an untold number of hours of waiting still ahead, Najwa Qubaisi pushed away every relative who tried to coax her from the concrete skeleton of the building that had once been home to her grandson and his family.
“How can I leave? I can’t,” she said, her eyes puffy from hours of crying. “I want to stay until I get some kind of news.”
A day after an Israeli strike razed two buildings in an attack that killed members of its regional foe, Hezbollah, in suburban Beirut, the relatives of those who lived there were anxiously waiting on Saturday to learn the fate of dozens of loved ones still unaccounted for.
Desperate, dazed-looking family members huddled in crowds just beyond the remains of sidewalks that had been ripped away and torn apart by the force of the blast. The occasional screeches of ambulance sirens were audible as rescuers brought in heavy equipment to remove tons of concrete in search of the missing.
The blasts on Friday were not only a painful military blow to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group that lost two top commanders and over a dozen members in what Israel described as a strike on a meeting held after a string of Israeli attacks this past week. They were also devastating to the largely Shiite Muslim community of Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has long held sway.
The toll of the blast has risen to 37, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, with three children among the dead. And sorrow and rage emanated from those still awaiting news.
Ms. Qubaisi said that her son, who was outside the building when the Israeli attack hit, was alive. But she still had no news of her daughter-in-law and grandson, who had been at home when the strike occurred.
The scenes playing out on the streets of Beirut mirrored similar signs of desperation on social media, where families posted pictures of missing loved ones, labeled with phone numbers in case anyone spotted them. Others posted the names and pictures of dazed, wounded children who had arrived alone at hospitals for treatment.
Across Beirut on Saturday, as people traded stories of missing loved ones, some residents said they hoped Hezbollah would strike back fiercely in revenge. Others wondered quietly among themselves how a group seen as Israel’s most formidable regional foe had seen its operations so deeply penetrated.
Hezbollah is not only a militia that is one of Iran’s most powerful allies in the region. It is also a political organization that retains broad support from many of Lebanon’s Shiite Muslims, a community that was historically poor and marginalized.
The group has retained their support throughout previous wars with Israel, even as cross-border clashes become ever more costly in this current conflict — not just in lives, but also in the displacement of thousands who fled the near daily exchange of rocket fire between Israel and the Hezbollah on Lebanon’s southern border.
That is in part because of Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon, where the group has become the most powerful force in the country, and also because of the broad range of services it provides, including quality health care and free education.
Despite growing anger and calls for revenge against Israel, many Hezbollah supporters said they would stand by whatever the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, deemed the best path forward.
Outside the destroyed buildings on Saturday, Ms. Qubaisi did not demand that Hezbollah take revenge. But she called for other Arab countries to act to thwart Israel’s escalating attacks: “We want Arab countries to break their silence, to do something against these crimes.”
