By Rawan Soujaa
Photography by Rawan Soujaa
“Arab lives don’t seem to matter as much as Western lives,” resigned Shady, a Lebanese-born graduate LSE student. To some, the war in the Middle East is merely a casual encounter in the news. But for many, including Lebanese students and staff at LSE, the war is affecting them and their loved ones in brutal ways. As Shady spoke, almost 5,000 kilometres away, homes and businesses primarily in the capital city and southern and eastern regions of Lebanon were being brutally invaded and bombed by the Israeli military following the recent continuation of the decades-long tension between Israel and Lebanon.
“It feels dehumanising…the very foundations of International Human Rights Law are crumbling before our eyes,” Shady added.
On 1 October 2024, Israel launched its fifth invasion of Lebanon following decades of geopolitical tension that date as far back as the 1948 Nakba, meaning ‘the disaster’ in Arabic and marking the Palestinian loss of homeland. Over 100,000 Palestinian refugees were forced out of their homes back then, fleeing internally to Gaza and the West Bank, and externally to neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. As Israel continues to deprive Palestinians of their right to self-determination, their destructive campaign which extends beyond Gaza continues to destabilise the region, including Lebanon.
In fact, it was only as recent as 13 October that the Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, suggested hopes to expand their invasion beyond Lebanon to Damascus in Syria, citing political ambitions of a ‘Greater Israel’. Statements of this sentiment have been peppered around since well before 7 October 2023, with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, affirming that “there will be no Palestinian state on [his] watch” during a 2015 election campaign speech. Back in 1948, the founder and first Prime Minister of the Israeli state, David Ben-Gurion, stated that “[their] aim [was] to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria… then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai”.
Despite this history and the extreme statements and actions of the Israeli state, the predominant narrative surrounding the Middle East has been riddled with ‘emergency imaginary’ headlines underpinned by juxtaposed tones of Arab passive victimhood and active villainy, and Lebanon has been no different. Suddenly, and yet not so suddenly, entire populations, cultures, and identities fizzle down to references of militant groups and sectarian political actors, stripping the region’s people of their history, depth, and agency. We see this take shape with ‘Hezbollah’s Lebanon’, ‘Hamas’ Palestine’, ‘Assad’s Syria’, ‘Yemen’s Houthis’, and many other political regimes across the MENA region.
“In commentary about Lebanon, we often hear statements that what is happening is tragic and heartbreaking. But we’re not talking about an earthquake or a natural disaster here…this is an invasion, a war,” stated Dr. Omar Al-Ghazzi, an Associate Professor at LSE. His own family had to flee their home in Beirut last month as missiles tore through buildings and streets, killing and injuring thousands of civilians.
“This is a result of policies and actions by Israel and its [Western] backers,” he adds. Dr. Al-Ghazzi, whose research centres on media and journalism in the Middle East, reflects on the focus on terrorism within mainstream coverage of this war. “When you read about airstrikes in media reports, you would be forgiven to think Israel is only targeting militants,” he adds, referring to the often biased narrative framings employed by the Western media to understate crimes against humanity in Lebanon and Palestine.
Additionally, there is comparatively less attention to the impact on civilians in Palestine and Lebanon that is often afforded to other crises and conflicts, particularly in comparison with the Russia-Ukraine war. Since 23 September, over 1 million people in Lebanon have been either killed, injured, displaced, and/or terrorised by Israel’s disproportionate aerial bombing campaign, pager detonations, and ground incursions. “You’re seeing thousands of people having to evacuate their homes in the middle of the night in their pyjamas, sleeping on the streets, sleeping in schools,” recounts Dr. Al-Ghazzi.
While those on the ground in Lebanon are unequivocally impacted at a far greater scale, many members of the LSE community are also enduring loss, dread, and the paradoxical guilt and gratitude of being far from home. Several students and staff members at LSE are coping with a stew of complex emotions that come with being Lebanese at a time that is marked by tension, distress, and oftentimes, ignorance.
Nina*, an LSE graduate student, mourns the loss of her grandfather’s hometown-turned-rubble following Israeli airstrikes on October 16 in Southern Lebanon’s second most populated city. “Nabatieh is no more…it feels like a part of my history is gone forever.” She recollects the excitement she felt earlier in the year as she planned her first-ever visit home: “I was finally going back to my home country when everything began in October…there’s another layer of grief within that.”
Noor, a Lebanese LSE undergraduate student who grew up in the UK, reminisces on her visit to Lebanon only two months prior: “My whole village [has been] turned into rubble…my childhood memories are non-existent now.”
Others like Shady, who left their immediate families in Lebanon to pursue education abroad, grapple daily with the fear for their relatives’ safety, as well as the uncertainty of when they will reunite. “Maybe it’s selfish, but I had plans to go back for Christmas…I don’t know when I will see them again.”
During what feels like an endless loop of calls for ceasefires, interviewees noted the growing manifestation of external crisis fatigue, despite the escalating presence of war. “My grandparents’ cemetery was bombed two weeks ago,” shared Noor. “This brought to light how many people don’t reach out to you in those situations,” which she partially attributed to the perceived ambiguity and sensitivity of the subject by those outside of the conflict. Noor further emphasised how sharing first-hand accounts, while possibly traumatising for the person themselves, may help dispel layers of propaganda and misinformation in the media.
Today, Lebanon continues to endure pain and suffering. From the country’s civil war that ended in 1990, to Israel’s occupation of the south until 2000, and its war on Lebanon in 2006, in conjunction with one of the world’s worst financial crises in 2019, and a port blast that destroyed much of the capital city in 2020, the question stands – are Lebanese people born to suffer? Does any one nation or ethnic group truly possess a genetic predisposition to endure colossal hardship and carry on?
The answer is of course not. These questions encourage us to read beyond the painful statistics and emotionally-charged headlines to critically question the magnitude of human suffering, the loss of family trees and their bloodlines, of dreams in stolen futures, of memories and the homes they took place in. In Noor’s words, it is easy to get stuck “viewing something for what it could have been, instead of what it is”, but by no means should we comfortably swallow the widely prescribed pill that Lebanon – in all its beauty and complexity – is simply not destined for peace.
* Names have been changed to preserve anonymity
