Testimony collected by Laura Albast.
Around the world, I don’t think a single Lebanese slept on Friday, Sept. 27. Israel, equipped with U.S.-made weapons, bombed Beirut. As 2,000-pound bombs dropped from the sky, my friend, who lives in Mount Lebanon, texted me describing what she heard. Her apartment shook. The sounds made it seem as if the strikes were targeted at her own apartment. I didn’t know what to say, the feeling of helplessness engulfed me.
“I’m so sorry. Stay safe. I’m praying for you.”
I’m in the U.S., safe… But the Lebanese, the Palestinians, and all those residing in their small and densely-populated cities and towns know no safety as they are indiscriminately being bombed by criminal, colonial entities with no moral conscience.
My friend would tell me she was going to sleep but her name would light up my phone screen 15 minutes later, texting that she woke up to the sound of another bomb.
“I love you.”
I text her, other friends, and my cousins. I wanted them to know in case I couldn’t say it again.
I walk to class on a university campus that exists. Universities in Lebanon have closed and Israel destroyed all physical pillars of education in Gaza. Before my lecture on human rights, I open my phone and scroll: a picture of a martyr, their body shredded, hand cut off lying on the ground.
I walk to another class, Refugees and Migration. I open my phone and scroll: the Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp near Dahiya was bombed. I think of my late maternal grandmother who was made a refugee in Lebanon after the Nakba; She used to teach at the camp. She passed away two years ago. I visited the camp last December, I remember the children playing, and the pharmacies on every block. I am devastated for them. All I think about as I sit in every class is how my people have been robbed of their rights, of their lives.
In January, my classmates and I visited the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. A European diplomat lectured us about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When I asked her to speak about Gaza, she scolded me and said that there was no good reason for the people in Ukraine to be bombed… As if there is a good reason for the Arabs to be bombed. I wondered then if the Americans and the Europeans, the so-called champions of international law and human rights, see my people as human beings.
My paternal grandfather lives in Chehour — a small town on the Litani River in Tyre, Southern Lebanon. Israel has been bombing the South since October 2023 when the genocide began in Gaza. He refused to leave, he wanted to die in his home. He stayed despite the danger, tending to his plants and vegetables, and running his furniture shop. Last week, Israel issued one of its many terrorizing ‘evacuation’ orders in the South. People fled their homes, forcibly expelled in a wave of fear. Many didn’t make it — cars were bombed as they tried to escape. It felt like another Nakba… we were terrified for my grandfather. Thankfully, after that, he left for Beirut in an agonizing 8-hour drive waiting in the queue of cars.
I sit at home with my dad. I tell him how upset I am, I tell him about the rush of worry I get as we receive news of a bombing and I text friends and family to ask if they were okay. He tells me I’m lucky I can text them. During the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, my father was a student in the U.S. He spent the year not knowing whether his family in the South were dead or alive, there were no viable communication channels. Israeli colonial violence has impacted every generation of my family.
When I was three years old during Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, I remember that we hid in our apartment building’s garage underground for a very, very, very, long time. It felt like forever. My mother tells me we only hid for one day. We had escaped to Jordan, she couldn’t bear the deafening sounds of war. I cannot begin to fathom the weight of memories my parents bear. I am lucky. I think about all the children for whom war is all they’ve ever known, their parents helpless against the brutality of Israel’s violence.
On Sept. 23, Israel bombed Ghazieh. My dad’s cousin lost her husband and son — their entire building collapsed and most bodies were never found, as if they had evaporated. They identified her husband by the sole foot they found lying in the rubble. They identified the son by what remained of his teeth. They buried the foot. They buried the teeth. That is all they could bury.