BEIRUT — Hours after an Israeli strike destroyed a three-story building in Beirut, killing at least 10 people, Maggie Shaarawi received a call from a man who lived nearby to say that a cat with several kittens had died in the attack.
As members of the civil defense combed the rubble for victims or survivors, Shaarawi and other members of the animal welfare organization Animals Lebanon also rushed to the scene in Beirut’s central Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood on Friday.
To get to the kittens, they began scrambling over rubble, twisted metal, and collapsed walls. The animals, which were only a few days old, were pulled out, placed in a plastic carrier and taken away while rescuers continued to search for other cats, whose cries could be heard from under the wreckage.
Shaarawi said that in the past three weeks, they managed to rescue 190 animals from the strike sites in Beirut and its southern suburbs. In some cases, she added, they return the animals to their owners, while others remain at the group’s shelter in the Lebanese capital.
“We believe that caring for animals is caring for people. At the end of the day, it’s the people who call us for help,” Sharavi said.
Since Lebanon’s Hezbollah began attacking Israeli military posts along the border last October, and Israel retaliated with airstrikes and shelling of much of southern Lebanon, animal rights activists have been heading south to help save pets.
After Israel increased his attacks in parts of Lebanon on September 23, displacing hundreds of thousands, many people left their pets in southern Lebanon or in A southern suburb of Beirut. Since then, animal rights activists have increased the number of their missions, putting their own lives in danger to save animals, mainly cats and dogs, or to bring them to where their owners have fled.
“Our teams are working 24 hours a day,” Shaarawi said, adding that they are entering homes in the southern suburbs to take the animals to safety.
After the rescue of the kittens, two adult cats remained, but they were too scared for the activists to approach them. Later, members of Animals Lebanon brought metal traps and baited them with food, hoping the cats would enter and be captured.
Sharavi said that when cats or dogs are injured, they are usually taken immediately to a clinic for treatment, and those that are in good condition are either sent back to their owners or left at shelters.
Many of the animals they rescue have suffered injuries, including broken bones, from falling on their walls.
“We are dealing with cases that have never been seen before,” Shaarawi said.
