Since Monday, Israeli strikes have killed over 600 people in Lebanon, notwithstanding the civilian casualties incurred last week as a result of explosives planted by Israel in hand-held pagers and walkie-talkies.
As of last night, another round of strikes and raids have targeted residential areas in Baalbek, namely in West and Central Bekaa. Lebanon's National News Agency issued a statement reporting that 23 Syrian workers were killed by the most recent Israeli strike in the Bekaa Valley, one of Lebanon’s most productive agricultural regions.
Despite calls for a temporary ceasefire from the U.S., France, and their European allies, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed his commitment to continue strikes "with full force" until "all [Israel's] goals" are achieved.
Speaking to Palestine Square, Aya Hashem, a Lebanese student living abroad, recounted her experience of waking up every day to more news about the destruction of her hometown.
I feel empty. I wake up sad and I am numb throughout the day. I have been glued to my phone watching this constant, interminable livestream of terror.
On Monday, at 11:13 a.m. Eastern Time (6:13 p.m. in Lebanon), I received a photo of strikes that erupted only meters away from our home in Iaat, a town in northwest Baalbek. Iaat is the most welcoming and inviting village on this Earth, nobody can tell me any differently. My earliest memories are of the late nights I spent with my cousins, gardening with my grandpa, watching my grandmother roll rice into fresh grape leaves, and picking cherries to stir into jam just for me. Everybody at the dikene, the corner store, knew who I was and to which family I belonged, and they can still recall all the relatives who came before us. When we walk back home, neighbors tell us to slow down, come in, have some tea, maybe a coffee, and try some fruit. Now my land, the only place where I wholly belong in this world… Israel was destroying everything we built and they were killing our people.
My family spent the first two days of Israel’s bombardment in Lebanon this week refusing to leave the town. They were afraid of the roads being targeted and leaving their homes unsure of when they’d be back. My Jiddo, my grandfather, will not leave. He is almost 96 years old. The bombs are close to his home, but he won’t abandon his beloved wife, my Teta, who was buried near their home in Iaat less than two months ago. He still feels her in their home; they raised eight children who gave them 28 grandkids. We have all eaten, slept, and grown up in that home. He tells us, over and over again, that he wants to die in that house. Selfishly, I want him in Beirut, but he should choose how he would leave this life with dignity.
When I was in Lebanon for the Beirut port explosion in 2020, many of my friends and relatives told me that they wished they could be in Lebanon, too. I thought that they were either crazy or masochistic, that something was wrong with them. But now I get it.
I am re-watching videos and zooming into photos of the destruction of Baalbek. I wish I could better articulate my love for Iaat, the village where my family lives, the village where my father was raised, the same village my mother calls her own. I harbor a visceral, metaphysical connection to the land; it’s the land where I am from, where I am rooted to something bigger than me, and it’s where I will always be tethered to, no matter how far away I am. I do not fear death, especially whenever I remember that I will be buried there, next to my ancestors who nurtured and harvested the land for generations, tending to their crops like children. My grandfather will be buried in the same plot of land when his time comes, as were his parents, and those who came before them. My mother, whose first home was Bint Jbeil, will also be buried in Iaat, and so will my father and my brother. For all of eternity, my family and I will stay. And when my body decomposes it will become part of its soil, and nothing brings me more comfort than knowing that even in death I will remain in Iaat.
When my father built our home, the one condition in his will was that we would never sell it, it was ours as long as the law permitted, as long as it stayed intact.
I go to class and Israel is bombing Baalbak. I walk home and Israel is bombing Baalbak. I take a shower and Israel is bombing Baalbak. I thought I had experienced heartbreak, but no, this is what it actually feels like to grip your body tightly and wait for the worst to be over. It is 1 a.m. time in Beirut, and they’re still bombing Baalbek.
I am always on my phone, waiting for bad news. Most of my cousins and their parents are now safely in the capital. They drove through Douris, which has now been razed to rubble. Abboud, our caretaker, is in Faqra. Nobody is left except my grandfather and his son-in-law, my aunt’s husband. I still have to wake up again tomorrow morning and go to class.