page_title: Tyre, Lebanon
section_title: 2006 Lebanon War
hierarchical_section_title: Tyre, Lebanon / History / 1943 Lebanese independence / Post-Sadr Era (since 1978) / Post-Civil War / 2006 Lebanon War
caption_attribution_description: English: A woman with red eyes. Described on flickr as "I think she's a US citizen who'd just escaped from the village of Yaroun, very close to the border with Israel, after two weeks of being bombed by Israeli forces. I can't be certain though, as I judged her too distressed to interview."
context_page_description: Tyre is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, though in medieval times for some centuries by just a tiny population. It was one of the earliest Phoenician metropolises and the legendary birthplace of Europa, her brothers Cadmus and Phoenix, as well as Carthage's founder Dido. The city has many ancient sites, including the Tyre Hippodrome, and was added as a whole to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1984.
  The historian Ernest Renan noted:
  One can call Tyre a city of ruins, built out of ruins.
  Today Tyre is the fifth largest city in Lebanon after Beirut, Tripoli, Aley and Sidon, It is the capital of the Tyre District in the South Governorate. There were approximately 200,000 inhabitants in the Tyre urban area in 2016, including many refugees.
context_section_description: During Israel's invasion in the July 2006 Lebanon War, several rocket-launching sites used by Hezbollah to attack Israel were located in rural areas around the city. IDF commandos raided a building on the outskirts of Tyre killing at least two Hezbollah fighters, and Shayetet 13 (Israeli naval commandos) also raided Hezbollah targets within the city. 
  While some Lebanese army soldiers were killed in such attacks as well, most of the victims were civilians. At least one village near the city was bombed by Israel as well as several sites within the city, causing civilian deaths and adding to the food shortage problem inside Tyre:
  – On 16 July around noon a strike by the IAF on a residential apartment building behind the Jabal Amel Hospital – known as the Sidon Institute – at the outskirts of Tyre killed eight members of a family. 
  – At about the same time, five civilians were killed by another aerial assault on Burj El Shimali, including two children. 
  – Later in the afternoon of that same day, another airstrike on a multistorey apartment building in Tyre, which also housed the Civil Defense Forces, killed 14 civilians, amongst them a one-year-old girl and a Sri Lankan maid.
  – On 21 July, army soldiers reportedly buried 72 victims in a mass grave in Tyre. 
  – On 25 July, two ambulances of the Lebanese Red Cross were hit by the IAF as they transported injured civilians to Tyre.
  – On 13 August, five civilians were killed in Burj El Shimali, amongst them three children and one Sri Lankan maid.
  
  UNIFIL troops helped with heavy bulldozers to clear debris from those bombardments. Meanwhile, according to the official UN account, on the diplomatic level,
  "On 11 August 2006, the Security Council, following intense negotiations, passed resolution 1701 calling for a full cessation of hostilities in the month-long war based upon, in particular, 'the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations' in Lebanon.Aware of its responsibilities to help secure a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution to the conflict, the Security Council created a buffer zone free of 'any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL' between the United Nations-drawn Blue Line in southern Lebanon and the Litani River".
  Still in August 2006, Italian reinforcements for UNIFIL landed in amphibian crafts on the shores of Tyre. While UNIFIL had a troops strength of about 2,000 at that point in time, the Security Council soon expanded the mandate of UNIFIL, and increased it to a maximum of 15,000 troops.
caption: "Distress on the face of a woman seeking refuge from the south Lebanon attacks, July 27"
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