A year after October 7, the nightmare continues, and, above all, is gaining momentum. After 12 months of enduring exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, the population of Lebanon is facing a bloody escalation. There were more than 2,000 deaths and 9,800 injuries, as well as one million people who were forced to leave their homes. Since September 17 and the explosion of the electronic devices of Hezbollah members, the country has been terrified and exhausted. This humanitarian crisis comes after a succession of economic and political crises that are already severe. Whether they are in the heart of Beirut, in Tripoli, or in Canada thousands of kilometers away, the Lebanese people have been holding their breath for three weeks. Their lives have been interrupted by the relentless bombardments and the toll that continues to rise. For La Converse, they tell the unspeakable. Report.
A year after the attack on October 7 by Hamas, the atmosphere is bleak in Lebanon. No one fully realizes it, but its inhabitants have been witnessing horrors for a year. Moreover, for the past three weeks, the country and its diaspora have not slept, overwhelmed by the escalation of the conflict in the country and the daily bombardments of Israel.
The back is bent, the eyes are burning due to lack of sleep, hours of looking at the small phone screen to follow the information at every moment, to stay in touch with loved ones. Since September 23, 2024, the lives of the Lebanese have been punctuated by the sound of drones, the bombings and the count of deaths, injuries and destruction that accumulate endlessly. It is their daily life. Whether they are in Lebanon or abroad.
“Since I arrived, I've been glued to my cell phone, watching the news and writing to my family,” says Michelle from her Montreal apartment. She preferred not to disclose her identity. “You can keep my first name, because I want Canadians to be surprised to see an Arab with a familiar first name! ” she said to me laughing during our WhatsApp call. Born in Canada, she is also Lebanese. She has just returned from her annual stay with her family, in a village not far from Tripoli, in the north of the small country. “It's a safe place, but all the young people work in Beirut during the week. I am very worried about them. It's difficult,” continues the professional dancer.
The young woman with long curly hair dyed in purple went to Lebanon to spend the summer and celebrate three weddings. His return flight was scheduled for September 24, a few days after the simultaneous explosions of electronic devices and the bloody bombings that followed. After several flight cancellations, she managed to leave on the 29th, the day before the assassination of the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. “I felt a strong sense of guilt in escaping. I left, but the others and my loved ones can't. If I hadn't had to come home for work, I wouldn't have bothered to be there,” she said. Like many Lebanese, she would rather be with her family than safe abroad.
However, and Michelle knows it well, being in Lebanon means being confronted with the news, the sound of bombs every night, the sounds of drones several hours a day and the Israeli planes that fly over the country from north to south. These are all elements that also fuel psychological warfare. “I arrived in July, just as Israeli army devices were beginning to break the sound barrier in Beirut and the south almost every day. It's a tactic to terrorize people,” explains the young woman. Causing a strong explosion, similar to an explosion, this maneuver makes the war impossible to forget. Like drones and their engine airplane noise.
Since returning to Montreal, she has preferred to drown in work rather than think. “I have not gotten back in touch with my emotions. It's like I don't feel anything,” she said.
Like Michelle, Marie* has no choice but to keep working and living a normal life. This is while Israel is pounding Lebanon after dark, terrorizing those at home and paralyzing those far away. A permanent resident for a year, she left Lebanon in a hurry when the war broke out in 2023. Returning home for two weeks in September, she escaped the worst by returning to Canada before the conflict escalated.
“Some people tell me that I am lucky to have left. Yes, I left the country, but I am disgusted to watch the bombings on my country, to see the victims, Marie says. Even when we are not in Lebanon, we are constantly frozen in front of our screens, we experience insomnia. We are unable to cry, we have already exhausted our tears for Palestine, and we have been seeing horrible images every day for the past year.” She feels the same guilt as Michelle and the Lebanese abroad: “Many are stuck in Lebanon! It's too much to deal with,” she sighs.
“We literally arrived in slippers”
From abroad, these women share the terror caused by the bombings and the short nights following the news: the last neighborhoods or buildings affected, the mobilization of citizens and associations to support the million displaced in search of safety, the fatigue and horror on the road of those fleeing from the south to the north.
After a bloody weekend of bombardments all over the south of the country, hundreds of thousands of people have in fact fled the region to find refuge in Beirut or further north. They joined the 110,000 people who have fled the southern border for months to cities further north, such as Tyre or Saida.
This Monday, September 23, Salwa* did not think long. She fled with her children, Mira* and Ali*, to take refuge in an abandoned hotel in Tripoli, the country's second largest city, located 60 km north of Beirut. Reluctantly, they had to leave their home in Nabatieh, 70 km south-east of Beirut.
“As soon as we heard the sound of warplanes, we started packing. We literally arrived in slippers. People were crying and screaming. Mom started moaning on the floor. There was broken glass everywhere,” said her daughter Mira, sitting in the grass next to Ali, her youngest. She is only 13 and she talks about bombs and airplanes that break the sound barrier as if she had known this all her life, as if she were 20 years older. She is assertive and shares without blinking the horror they have suffered day and night since the pager attack in their city: “Since then, the attacks have followed one another every day. We were barely sleeping because of the sound of Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier.”
I meet them in the hotel garden. They arrived three days ago. On site, the sound of the wind in the orange trees and the singing of the birds mingle with the cries of the children. Right next door, cars are coming and going to deliver goods and supplies. Volunteers and refugees are busy at the entrance of the hotel to organize aid and support the 1,000 people who are in the hotel. It took 24 hours for the establishment to fill up, like the fifty other shelters scattered in and around Tripoli.
On September 23, panic was total and the blocked roads looked like an apocalypse. Mira has only one word to describe it: “Horror.” A trip that normally takes one hour could easily take all day. “It took us 10 hours. It was nightmarish, with lots of rockets, warplanes and smoke,” adds Salwa, who is more discreet than her daughter.
“No more money, no house, nothing”
A few days later, while the situation was still chaotic, Israel was relentlessly bombing the southern suburbs of Beirut. Since then, the bombings on the neighborhood have been almost daily. So much so that an entire suburb has almost been emptied of its 500,000 inhabitants. Tens of thousands have taken the streets as a refuge, settling on the corniche by the sea, on the beach, in the parks or on the famous Place des Martyrs. Since then, their numbers have declined and most have found a more permanent refuge, rented an apartment, or been taken in by family members.
But two weeks later, men, women and children are still sleeping outside due to lack of space in the shelters.
After a night interrupted by the sound of 17 bombs thrown at several neighborhoods in the city, I went to Ramlet al-Baïda (“white sand” in Arabic), Beirut's public beach, to meet displaced people. It is October 3 and, like every morning for the past three weeks, Beirut is waking up in bad shape. We no longer wonder how we are doing, but how we slept or how we survive.
That morning, the midday sun was dazzling and overwhelming. Children play in the water and on the swings, their skin already blackened from the week they spent here. Meanwhile, adults hide from the sun in rickety huts. A group of women smoke hookah in a circle and talk. The scenery could be idyllic if there was no war, if the boaters had not lost everything because of it and the Israeli bombings.
I sit next to this small group sitting facing the sea. Most are Syrians who fled the war in their country over 10 years ago. Just last week, they were living in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Their faces are tired, their skin is dry, and a man's body is covered in plaques due to poor hygiene. “I left last week with my two children. We have been living outside for 10 days,” explains Fatema, a mother of two boys. A scarf covers her blond hair. After “selling everything” to leave Syria, she was navigating between several small jobs. Now she has no income.
Desperate and revolted, she picked up the telephone, which recorded her words to make her message heard to the world and denounce the situation in Lebanon to the West. “I have nothing left! No more money, no house, nothing. I just have this bag of clothes left for two boys,” she explains, pointing to the plastic bag next to her.
Every day, she takes her children to the public beach in Beirut to keep them busy. All she wants is money to go to Syria. Above all, she wants to get her children out of this misery. “The children cry all the time. Their father is their only support, and he has been in Syria, injured and without income for a year. My family is in Turkey,” she laments. The day before, she had to celebrate her son's birthday without being able to give him a gift. “He's 11, but we didn't really celebrate,” she regrets.
Powerless, Fatema can only wait. Like the million other displaced people. While some have been able to rent a new home, others are hustling in the homes of other families. Around 115,000 people would be accommodated in nearly 900 shelters, in precarious conditions, sometimes without water or electricity. These shelters have been set up in schools — which will not be able to reopen for a while —, social centers or hotels. And then there are also those people who, like Fatema, are still on the streets. Around 185,000 people are also said to have reached neighboring Syria.
Humanitarian crisis
As you go up the stairs from the beach to the road, you can see families sitting behind tarps and blankets on the sidewalk. They hide from the sun and try to find even a little bit of privacy. For now, these makeshift shelters are working, as the weather is still mild. But winter is coming, and with it the storms, the wind, the rain and especially the cold. Associations come to see them daily to assess their needs and provide them with some support. “We get food every day, at least once a day, thank God,” explains Fatema.
But this emergency aid is not viable in a country where the population is already burdened by a succession of political and economic crises. Indeed, Lebanon has not had a government for over two years and is suffering from one of the worst economic crises since 1850. The consequences are hyperinflation — making everyday products luxury goods —, a 98% devaluation of the Lebanese pound and wages that do not follow, reducing many Lebanese to earning only $70 to $140 per month.
Faced with this dramatic situation, which is causing yet another crisis, a humanitarian one this time, the whole country has mobilized. In addition to shelters, restaurants and social places have turned into soup kitchens. NGOs and local associations have paused their work to respond to the emergency and distribute mattresses, clothing, food and hygiene kits for women and children. Citizens are also mobilizing, providing equipment and volunteering.
“At the moment, there are a lot of civilian initiatives to support the displaced, but we need something permanent, and that's what we're starting to put in place,” explains Jad Al Rayess, from the NGO Operation Big Blue, who was met on the beach. And what will happen when these people who are helping have gone too many nights without sleep? When they, too, need help because of a bomb that exploded in their neighborhood, will they also have to flee?
More than just help, the displaced people I've met want to show the world what's going on in Lebanon. They demand justice and support from the international community as well as from the Arab world. After losing everything, not all of them have the privilege of being able to go back to living in another city or country. Most are doomed to wait. Wait to go back to school, wait to work again, wait to find your region and to rebuild yourself.
“If I get a chance to go back to the south, I will,” Ali says defiantly. Despite his smile and provocative tone, his joke says a lot about his real motivation: to find his life, his region and his home. Go back to school and have the life a 10-year-old should have. The life he had before October 8.
*First names have been changed to ensure the safety of interviewees.