Animal rescuer tends to pets and livestock abandoned in southern Lebanon

In the village of Kfaroue in southern Lebanon, Hussein Hamza makes daily rounds to feed and check on animals left behind after residents fled. The number of animals in his care has grown since the start of the Israel-Hezbollah war, as hundreds of thousands of people evacuated and could not take pets or farm animals with them.

In some cases, owners were killed in airstrikes and some animals arrived wounded. Dozens of dogs gather around Hamza as he pushes a wheelbarrow of chicken pieces. Some dogs are missing limbs. One has an infected foot wound that he cleans before moving on to water chickens and a pair of camels.

Shelter operations “During the war, people contacted us and told us they had left their chickens behind because everyone had to evacuate suddenly,” Hamza said. Although some airstrikes occurred near Kfaroue, the village remained calmer than areas closer to the border.

“They asked us to bring the chickens here, because if they were left roaming free, foxes might eat them, and otherwise they would die from hunger and thirst,” he said. Hamza has operated the Mashala shelter at its current site for seven years. Daily costs for food, medical care, spaying and neutering, wages, fuel, and repairs now run $400 to $500.

Funding and future plans “When I first started, I paid for everything myself,” Hamza said. ” He later created a Facebook page to seek donations. As the situation in southern Lebanon has calmed under a tentative truce, Hamza waits for owners to return and reclaim their animals.

Some dogs have found new homes, including a pit bull mix whose previous owners were killed in an airstrike. “A dog needs someone to take care of him, and when you take care of him, he will take care of you,” said Abbas Shoeib, who adopted one of the dogs.