‘Nobody’s Spared From This Conflict’: Lebanon’s People Are In Survival Mode

When Rabih Torbay landed in Lebanon on April 8, he was shocked to find the airport and the road to Beirut empty. The journey brought back memories of his childhood during the country’s civil war decades ago: images of the destruction of the southern suburbs lay before him.

An hour later, Israel launched 100 airstrikes on its homeland in a 10-minute period. There was no warning.

Recalling that he heard about attacks on populated areas while he was in the Beirut office of the humanitarian aid group, Torbay said: HOPE Project.

“We were not in direct danger, but it was clear that the staff were agitated,” he said. “Suddenly everyone pulled out their phones and started calling their loved ones to make sure they were okay.”

The attack that day More than 350 people were killed, more than 1,200 were injured, and civilian infrastructure was destroyed, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health. Israel agreed a temporary ceasefire With Hezbollah on April 17 and Thursday We agreed to extend the ceasefire three more weeks.

Torbay is one of many aid workers desperately trying to keep up with Lebanon’s worsening humanitarian crisis. Israeli bombing has displaced more than a million people, pushing them into shelters with little access to food, water and healthcare.

“As a Lebanese, although [United] “For a long time in the United States, it is always painful to see your country suffering, to see displaced women and children sleeping in tents and cars and garages on the side of the road or not knowing where to go,” he said.

“No matter where you go, you always feel bad. But when it comes to your own people, when it’s the people you grew up with, when it’s in your DNA, it takes a different toll on you,” he continued. “It brings a completely different perspective on things.”

The current war broke out on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israel responded with a massive bombing campaign and ground invasion of southern Lebanon and still occupies a “buffer zone” along the border.

Although Israeli soldiers claimed that their aim was specifically to destroy Hezbollah, they killed approximately 2,300 people and injured more than 7,100, including hundreds of women and children. Lebanon’s top political officials agreed to a ceasefire on April 17, but both Israel and Hezbollah violated it. It is unclear whether both sides will continue attacking each other as part of the ceasefire extension on Thursday.

Despite increasing health needs Israel’s deadly attacks First responders, hospitals, and medical professionals have made it difficult for Lebanese families to get the help they need. Multiple hospitals and more than 54 health centers were closedThe activities of other facilities are limited.

“When I was at Hasbaiyya Hospital the whole building was shaking and you could hear and feel the shelling in your bones,” Torbay said of the facility south of the Litani River. “But people kept working; doctors and nurses kept working because they knew… people had no one else to take care of them. But that wasn’t enough.”

Project HOPE sent four mobile medical units to provide primary care to more than a dozen shelters in Lebanon. One of them is a dilapidated hospital shelter in Beirut’s Ramlet al-Bayda neighborhood, which is home to about 550 displaced people, mostly women and children.

The building, formerly known as the Middle East Hospital, is in even worse shape due to weather conditions and overcrowding. Torbay said a 15-by-15-foot room with broken windows served as living space for at least 22 people; These included a paraplegic child, a child with a seizure, and an elderly woman who could not get out of bed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place as awful as that hospital,” he said. “The ceilings had collapsed. There were leaks from the sewer pipes, the water pipes. It smelled of dampness. There was nothing; there was no electricity, but there was water they could use.”

While garbage and sewage in the building make families more susceptible to water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, the decrease in children’s immunity causes an increase in upper respiratory tract infections such as flu and bronchitis. According to Torbay, the old woman begged to return home so that “although [she] dies tomorrow, [she] He just wants to die with dignity.”

Like other conflict zones, those most affected by Israel’s campaign of destruction are children in Lebanon; They risk being buried under rubble, exposed to explosions, or falling ill from malnutrition and disease. Almost a third of Project HOPE’s mobile medical unit patients are children.

Torbay warned that people who are not in immediate physical danger are still experiencing extreme psychological distress, including children who may show psychosomatic symptoms caused by stress. But civilians were forced into a situation where they could not focus beyond basic survival.

“No one survived this conflict,” the humanitarian worker said.

“If you talk to anyone right now, they’ll tell you, ‘All I care about is eating, drinking and taking my medicine, I’ll deal with everything else later,'” Torbay said. “But you can see that it starts to harm both adults and children. [and] especially children.”

Children began to hold on to adults because they were afraid of being left alone during air raids. The lack of play space in many shelters means that children do not have many opportunities to socialize with their peers. While schools are having difficulty staying open, students are falling behind in education day by day.

“Even if the war ends today, we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the mental health issues we will be dealing with for those children and their families for years to come,” Torbay said.

When the United States, Iran and Israel first agreed to a temporary ceasefire, Lebanon hoped it would be included in the cessation of hostilities. However, instead of including Lebanon in the ceasefire with Iran, Israel broke the ceasefire completely.

As the intensity of the bombings decreases and the eyes of the world focus largely on the United States and Iran, the Lebanese people fear being abandoned by the international community and humanitarian organizations.

“People don’t want to feel that they are forgotten. That’s when they lose hope,” said Torbay, emphasizing that humanitarian organizations should show people that “you still exist, that we care and want to help, that we are with you, regardless of politics, regardless of who we believe is right or wrong.”

Fear reflects this Voiced by Palestinians in GazaThe closed area that Israel has destroyed with US bombs over the last few years. While many media outlets and global leaders have drastically reduced their coverage following the so-called ceasefire agreement in October, Israel continued to execute This is what human rights groups and scholars now call genocide against the Palestinian people.

Even if the bombings are stopped permanently, Lebanon, like Gaza, will have a long road to recovery. One Review published on Monday The United Nations and the European Union estimated that human development across Gaza has declined by 77 years. 71.4 billion dollars are needed For recovery and reconstruction over the next decade.

“Civilians are not responsible for any conflict,” Torbay said. “They didn’t ask for this. No one asked to be displaced, no one asked to be killed, no one wanted this conflict. Civilians should not be punished for something they didn’t want.”