A reporter's journey to south Lebanon

WATCH CGTN reporter Adel El Mahrouky and his colleagues as they take their dangerous journey to South Lebanon from Beirut towards the frontline.

Transcript

00:00I'm packing my bags and heading south, getting closer to where the bombing and fighting between

00:08Israel and Hezbollah intensifies in the south of Lebanon. The journey might not be safe,

00:13so we're trying to have as much space as possible in our car.

00:18So I'm packing for myself and for my cameraman, who's also my brother.

00:22We're in the car and this is Ashraf. Hi, Ashraf. And this is Abbas. Hello, Abbas. He's our Lebanese

00:35fixer. He's from the south and he's taking us to this journey. He's basically our guide

00:41and he will be helping us throughout our stay in Sur. Sur is a city quite close to

00:50the fighting. It's been bombarded more intensely than Beirut has been.

00:56After staying in Beirut for five days, we became more or less comfortable with the situation there.

01:02We understand the areas that are mostly targeted and also understand that when the hits from

01:08Israel, the strikes, target places in central Beirut, it is not as a devastating attack

01:16as the southern suburb of Beirut, although people still die.

01:22We're now moving to the south of the country, where the fighting intensifies to a place called

01:28Tir. This is called the Laithani River. Anything north to Laithani is part of regular residential

01:35areas and starting here, all the territories in the south are areas where the United Nations

01:41UNIFIL, the forces that are keeping peace and monitoring any breaches between Lebanon and

01:48Israel, are situated and distributed. We're now entering the city of Sur. It's part of our

01:57destination. We're heading further south to get as close as possible and we'll be staying in what

02:03should be the safest place in that area. So this is the compound where we will be staying in Tir,

02:10part of Sur in south Lebanon, and it's usually a resort area where people would come here to

02:19have vacations, enjoy beach time. But instead, of course, the place has been deserted by holiday

02:25makers and has UN vehicles and press. This is the dominating stickers that you will find

02:34on vehicles here. Either people who are working part of the UNUNIFIL mission, this vehicle as well,

02:42or people like myself, journalists, who have come all the way here to cover the news for you.

02:51I'll show you around so that you know where exactly we are. Stay tuned. Most of the hotel staff has

02:57left. There are no computers working, there are no kitchens, so we had to get our food

03:06on our way, canned food and things that will not stay long in the fridge. And basically throughout

03:13our stay here, we will be preparing our own food. The view, as you can see, is majestic. Turquoise beach,

03:20white sand, and a beautiful view of Lebanon's mountain. But over there in the far landscape

03:28is where most of the battles are. Every once in a while we can see Hezbollah's rockets launch,

03:34Israeli strikes fall, as this mountain separates Lebanon from Israel. Because the compound

03:50is right there. An Israeli strike has just hit, where you can see the smoke coming up.

03:58Nothing before the explosion sound has been heard before. And yet not far away,

04:04you can see a Lebanese person having a swim and enjoying the sea.

04:10Journalists and cameramen in the background stay here all day long, waiting to report to you

04:18the updates, minute by minute. Some of these people have been here for a year,

04:25others have been covering the war since it broke out, but move around from one place in the south

04:32to the other. This is Adel Mahroui, I'm reporting to you from Tir, Sur, south of Lebanon,

04:38where the battle between Israel and Hezbollah continues. Take care.