Il Nuovo Postiglione - Defying Israeli bombs, Lebanese hold out in southern city of Tyre

"They'll have to take us by force," said the man in his thirties, who fled his home with his wife and two-year-old son, insisting they "will not surrender".

Despite Israeli ground operations and the spectre of a full-blown invasion, "we don't want to leave our land... our heart is here", he told AFP.

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel has responded with intense strikes and has sent ground troops into south Lebanon.

Around 20,000 people, including some 15,000 displaced from nearby villages, are defying Israeli army evacuation orders covering most of the coastal city and swathes of the country's south.

In Tyre's old city, people are crammed into a Christian district that has not been ordered to evacuate, and into a few schools.

But many wonder how long the city can hold out.

On Tuesday, around a dozen explosions rocked Tyre and nearby, the heaviest bombardment there since the start of the war.

Israeli fighter jets and drones circled the sky until nightfall, launching attacks that wounded at least 24 people, according to authorities, and sending black smoke billowing into the air.

Hezbollah has a strong presence in Tyre. Its yellow flag bearing a Kalashnikov flies from lampposts in the city famous for its long sandy beaches and ancient ruins.

Black-clad men are seen stationed near roundabouts, zipping through deserted streets on scooters or inspecting buildings reduced to rubble.

After Israeli army strike warnings, they shoot into the air to warn remaining civilians to flee.

- Stocks depleted -

Mustafa Ibrahim al-Sayed, 50, said he never leaves the school compound where he has taken refuge with his two wives and their 11 children.

Originally from a border village, they fled to Tyre during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024.

"Everyone is afraid for their homes and land, but what can we do?" he said.

"In my lifetime, this is the fifth time I've been displaced," he said, explaining that the first time was after Israel invaded south Lebanon in 1978.

"I don't want to be displaced again."

Israel's army on Wednesday accused Hezbollah of stationing military infrastructure in residential areas in Tyre and nearby.

A day earlier, Israel said it intended to take control of a "security zone" in south Lebanon up to the Litani River, which runs north of Tyre.

The move would effectively create a buffer zone stretching around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border.

Israel has bombed several bridges spanning the Litani, saying it wants to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying there, while Lebanon's president has accused Israel of wanting to cut off the area from the rest of the country.

Only one bridge still links Tyre to areas further north, along a narrow, battered coastal road winding between banana plantations and orange trees.

"If they target that bridge, we're headed straight for a humanitarian catastrophe," warned Alwan Charafeddine, Tyre's deputy mayor.

"It will be a siege -- supply convoys will no longer be able to reach Tyre."

"Our stocks are almost depleted," he said, listing urgent needs including food and fuel for electricity generators.

- 'End it' -

Several local and emergency officials told AFP they had received calls from Israeli officers telling them to make residents comply with Israel's evacuation orders.

"'I know my job, you do your job'" Mortada Mhanna, head of Tyre's disaster management unit, said he told the Israeli officer.

"We advised all the people to leave. And we told them we can get buses" escorted by the army, he told AFP.

"Everyone says, 'no, we want to stay here'," Mhanna said, adding: "I will be the last one to leave."

Nada Reda Abu Sari, 82, however, has not stayed by choice.

She has been sleeping on a mattress on a classroom floor for months after fleeing her now destroyed border village after the previous hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah erupted.

"I'm sick and I don't even have the money to buy medication," she said, empty boxes in her wrinkled hands.

"I'm not sleeping. Every time we hear a strike, we get up... we're dying every day," she said.

"We have no more homes, no land... nothing," she said.

"My children are all in different areas... I can only reach them by phone, but I don't have a phone."

Weeping, she asked: "Is this life?"

"Sometimes I think I should throw myself into the sea and end it, just end it."

T.Barbieri--INP