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Lebanon’s citizens are again caught under fire. As many as a million people are displaced as they search for a place of safety and there are fears of a major humanitarian crisis. The attacks are being carried out by Israel, which says it is targeting Hezbollah – an Iranian-backed militia and political party. The fighting has resumed as part of the wider conflict across the Middle East. Israel says its aim is to stop Hezbollah attacking communities in northern Israel. In our conversations, families in Lebanon share their experiences, once again, of living under attack and being on the move to stay safe.
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Hello, I'm Rob Young. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
In BBC Conversations, we bring people together to share their experiences, and this time
we hear from people in Lebanon.
In December 2024, we made an edition of BBC Conversations titled,
Israel Hezbollah ceasefire. Well, fast forward to today, and Lebanon's citizens are again
caught under fire, and many are on the move as they search for a place of safety.
The Lebanese Health Ministry says this latest conflict has killed more than a thousand people
and displaced more than a million. Amid the wider destruction across the Middle East,
there are fears of a major humanitarian crisis.
The attacks are being carried out by Israel, which says it's targeting Hezbollah,
an Iranian-backed militia and political party. They say their aim is to stop Hezbollah
attacking communities in northern Israel.
For our first conversation, my colleague James Reynolds brought together
Sarah, who lives to the east of the capital Beirut.
Tasnim, who lives in Beirut, but her family is from the south of the country,
and Karim, a PhD student, his family home in the capital, has been destroyed.
We consider ourselves one of the lucky ones, right? I'm a dual-american citizen,
or a middle class family. We have more capacity than other people, and despite all of that,
we still face immense bureaucratic challenges and majoring conveniences, and we are unable to
find a long-term house to remain in Lebanon for more than a few months, so we have to rely
primarily on the family and the generosity of family. Of course, solidarity is a big
important component of surviving anymore, but the costs are quite large.
Your family home in the south of Beirut got blown up, but as you speak to me, you sound
reasonably matter-of-fact about it. Yeah, I think we've grown very used
to these unfortunate circumstances, and I think in the past few years, many of us have
readied themselves for this situation, maybe not materially, but at least psychologically.
What else would surprise us? I as well live in Beirut's southern suburbs, not too
far from Karim's house, actually, in Beir Hassan. And as soon as the bombs started draining
that morning, I waited until my family evacuated from the south, I met them at my home,
and then we booked a hotel and moved. Those past couple of weeks have been basically moving
between friends' houses, and I have a bunch of pets with me, because we have a dog and a cat.
As Karim said, honestly speaking, what's extremely heart-trunching is the fact that we got used
to this. We have lived through way too many wars at this point in life, especially if you are,
I don't know how old you are, Karim, but myself, I'm in my 30s, so we've been living in a
perpetual state of war since we were born. The southern Lebanon was only liberated in 2000,
then we had to live the 2006 war. My house in the south was blown up in 2006. We rebuilt it.
Thankfully, it wasn't destroyed this time, but it was also damaged.
Let's bring in Sarah, your east of Beirut. What is your life been like since the beginning of
this round of conflict? James, at the beginning, I would like to share my heartfelt sympathy
with Thastim and Karim. I cannot even fathom how it must feel like to relocate and lose your house,
and no one, and I mean no one should know how it feels, but the reality says otherwise,
I am still considered a quote-unquote bless. I said off my house, but I don't live far away
from Beirut. Everything has changed. Survivor's guilt is there. I can still hear and feel everything
the day-to-day plan is there. I could no longer plan ahead of time. Spending my time volunteering
as much as possible and counting the blessings that I currently have, and I do not wish
this experience to literally anyone and the Lebanese people do not, they don't deserve this,
no one deserves this. How do you deal with the fact that around a million people have had to
leave their homes? That's about one in what seven of the population, that is a percentage which
we've rarely seen in other countries on that scale. It is actually very sad. We're talking about
the majority of the south is almost empty now. As you said, almost a million people, especially in
Beirut, are now relocated to the north and to other areas in Lebanon. It feels so real, James,
it feels so real. I cannot describe how it feels, but all we can do now is focus on helping each
other and support one another, however and whatever we can. The irony is that currently like the past
couple of days it was raining and there was a thunderstorm and you would no longer, is it a thunder,
is it an air strike, is it a sonic boom, and it is not normal that to a certain extent you will
get used to it if it didn't already, and it's something day-to-day. Is it normal moving the couch?
Or someone close the door or a motorcycle is passing through the street?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And on this place, like honestly speaking, the internally displaced,
we are currently blessed to have houses on top of our heads. It's beyond heartbreaking to see
all the people living out of tents. Those people that are living in their cars who actually own
their houses, who have houses, who had not had time to pack their things, to be able to
take what they need. And again, it's sometimes, some days are pretty cold and they're stuck
without anything. And there are kids on the streets. It's genuinely heartbreaking.
Do you all know people from the south who've come up to Beirut?
Oh, yeah, plenty. Tell me the conversations you've had with them.
I think there are several, there's a multi-fold conversation. The first conversation is
ensuring and safeguarding security at the bare minimum for the next month or so.
At the same conversation is finding some level of short-term housing.
The third conversation is trying to maintain work because many people are working class people,
they need to work to get the bare minimum of income to actually survive the war.
As some of them do remote work, some of them actually have work in the south,
so they don't have any income anymore unless they have a company that's able to ensure that
others have work in Beirut, so they have things slightly better. Not all companies have
adequate insurance. Other companies do have adequate insurance, so it's not all the same,
right? So that's not socially economic level, but also a lot of
resentment and frustration towards the global reality that we live in and the
impunity in which Israel is able to really enforce itself. So it's very multi-fold and it depends
on the audience you're speaking to and the diversity of audiences you're speaking to at this stage.
Yeah, well, the other types of conversations, the first question is, are you guys safe?
I'm speaking about the instance, like the first couple of days,
when they started to bomb the south and like a mass evacuation happened overnight,
and like people were stuck on the road for like hours on end even a full day.
At first it was, are you guys okay? Do you need anything do you have a place to stay?
Fortunately, some of the people that I know, or French of mine, do have apartments and houses
in the areas that are not being targeted, so they're good. Other families went to shelters.
So as a Lebanese citizen, the first thing that we can do is to ask what do they need,
they're okay. And then you start asking, is your house okay? What about work and stuff like that?
But mainly the main conversation right now is, I want to keep speaking, did you hear that?
They just struck this area. Did you feel it? Did you hear it? Let's go, let's come back to our
houses. Now they're gonna bomb the XY and Z. In recent years, there have been periodic rounds
of conflict. You've all made reference to the war in 2006, and there have been several rounds
since then. How do you all, as younger people, try to plan your lives when you know that your country
is routinely involved in waves of conflict, Sarah? It's about here we go again. In 2006, I was 11
years old. I was aware of the things, but I was a kid at the time, so I did not feel its intensity
as I am now. And in 2024, compared to now, it was more targeted, rather than red them hits,
people are sleeping like they give us a warning around like 3 p.m. And you can find all the
surrounding areas. Everyone has evacuated and the people who didn't will live in nearby cities
have opened their windows. And yet again, they only bomb us at 3 a.m. 6 a.m. There's no structure.
There's no specific target. It's just, okay, let's remove them. And that's it. We don't care
about the consequences. We don't care about anything, but we're just doing what we're doing.
And we don't have to pay the price over and over again. There's a resilience that is embedded
in the Lebanese people. It is what's keeping us going, what makes us finish our studies,
and dream of the career, and work on it, and build a house, and basically live on our land.
Sarah, you have your own personal plans for the future. Work and marriage and so on?
Of course. Of course, but everything's on hold now. Everything's on hold.
And it's not the first time. Every generation has to go through the same thing over and over again,
different means more technologically, like advanced, but accessory repeating itself in some way
or some form. And it's generational, unfortunately. And I'm pretty sure that Testimann
Karim can agree with me on that. Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah. That's, I think,
everywhere in the world, people have plans. Unfortunately, in Lebanon, we do have plans,
but they also have three to four to five contingency plans. And although that can
allow someone to be more robust, be more prepared, it also does the inspire people,
right? It does really put them down. It also does burn them out. And that really affects
Lebanese economy too, right? It affects our productive progress as people, whether that's
a situation, a technology or politically. For example, I mean, the way to make Lebanon stronger
includes political struggle in Lebanon, you know, actually making sure Lebanon becomes an
institution that just fair productive social, political, economic enterprise. We can't do that
in Lebanon because we're being bombed, right? We can't compete with the sectarian system,
because we're being bombed. We can't actually advance Lebanon as a country because we're being bombed.
So there is this myth sometimes by many people in Washington, you'll believe that if you bomb a
country, then you could reform it. And I think that's a tragic, you know, tragic, tragic
prophecy that's really put us in a very bad direction. Karim, Sarah and Tasnim, that conversation
was recorded a few days ago, but we've since been in touch with them to check in. And thankfully,
they're all okay. I'm Rob Young and you're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
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As well as the humanitarian cost of this war, as Karim mentioned, there's also a financial price.
We've discussed the dire state of Lebanon's economy on this programme in the past.
But earlier this year, the World Bank had more positive news, saying the country's finances
were recovering after the 2024 ceasefire and even tourism was making a comeback.
In our second conversation, we brought together three business owners.
Zaynab's family runs a fashion accessories company. Hodor is the manager of Barzac,
a cafe and bookshop in Beirut, and Tarik has two restaurants in the city.
I began our conversation, which we recorded on Wednesday, by asking them about the ongoing
air strikes on the capital. So last night was pretty tough one. We had a lot of bombing on the
suburbs of Beirut and a lot of like low flying fighter jets all night.
I think last night was very, very, very rough for the south of Lebanon.
For the suburbs, it was not as intensive as before. There were like 102 strikes, as I know.
But the jets were very, very low all over the suburbs and Beirut, extremely low last night.
I live in Beirut, so I'm hearing a lot of strikes in Beirut, in central Beirut,
and on the suburbs as well. No, I couldn't agree more. You know, the same thing.
Like it was very low yesterday. I think all of Beirut was awake yesterday night.
I want to find out a bit about your businesses, then. Tarik, tell me about your two restaurants.
So we have one called Bucco and Saifi village. It's pretty central. It's like downtown Beirut.
And the other one is close to it in an amazing neighborhood called Beirut.
Both are still open during the war. And our team, whoever can make it, is coming.
But business has been very slow in a way or another. Depending on the intensity of every night
and the sounds, basically. So you know, is your family's fashion business still open?
No, so basically, yeah, we do operate a fashion accessory supplier and we're currently not
operating just like the 2024 war, where we also stopped supplying. As demand really decreased
significantly, we had the Ramadan season and the eye season, which may I say were dead.
Usually it's one of our busiest seasons yet, where we have a high demand and designers and
manufacturers, you usually push a great deal of deals. But right now, everything stopped and
we are currently not operating at all. What about your cafe in Bucco?
So we are a cultural replacement, by the way, called Bertha. We are a coffee shop,
restaurant, and the book space. The business is very, very, very slow. So now we're doing,
like we used to do in 2024, we're doing meals for displaced people and we're trying to help
as much as we can. The business is not busy, so we're doing something else to help the community.
But everything is happening, like it's affecting the business really bad. And the number of the
customers are really, really less than before. Like I think the business is backward, like 80% at least.
80% that's a huge drop-off in business. You're still open now.
We're still operating, but you know, to keep surviving in all of this, you have to do some kind
of amendments, like I made them anyway, because if you have to buy stuff and the prices now
are skyrocketed, like everything is more expensive than before. The ingredients, the raw materials,
even if you want to buy the gas, or like if you want the generator, because you know the power
problem in Lebanon since 10 years back. So you have to pay more. So yeah, you have to make
amendments in every aspect. The biggest challenge for us as a business in Lebanon, even without
the war, is the utility expenses, because like we give electricity from the government,
but it doesn't come all on the 24 hours. So we have to have kind of like generators and
same with the water. So utility has been our biggest challenge in the business, giving now
the higher prices of fuel and all of that. So everything gets like pretty much more expensive
for us. What was last night like, Tarakad at your restaurant? Did anybody come into eat?
Yeah, we have few covers. So if you want to say the one in downtown Bucke was more casual and it's
like kind of a burger, so you get more traffic to it. The fine dining one, bay house is more affected.
It's like a proper outing and you go for to have a full experience. So yeah, it really depends
on the night and the intensity of the night. So if they put a kind of warning on the suburbs of
Beirut, the business dropped drastically. The days we don't have hits on the suburbs,
we work a bit more. But like as Khudr said, the business is like down at least 80%.
Why do you stay open then? Because if we close, it's going to affect the city,
it's going to affect our employees, it's going to affect everyone. So we stay open just for
like kind of resilience. We meet with the team every night, whoever can come, we make
a staff meal, we take care of each other better than closing and tell them to sit at home.
Like what Tarek said, we will make it as a safe place to express, to talk, to be distracted,
because this bubble you're making is like disconnected from what's happening outside.
So and also like when one strikes, for example, happening in the suburbs and in Dahia,
the business is affecting somehow, you know, like it's affecting, but like when it's getting
to start in center of Beirut, like some place, not in Dahia, the business really go down next
there, you know, you have no one, because people will start being scared to go out and like,
they will be like, now if they're hitting here, for sure, they will hit Hamaral, for sure,
they will hit in downtown, so people fear will be bigger. So the staff right now, they having
the target of helping people, they feeling like doing something, they feeling like we have a mission
to do disconnected from everything happening outside. So that's the bubble we're trying to make,
you know, like to keep active, like because if you're going to stay at home thinking what's
happening around you, you'll go crazy. So what we're doing basically, all the team comes,
we set up the restaurant and we do four times a week trainings on different topics with the team,
some related to cost controls, some related to service, some related to to business in general
and PNL. So we're trying to stay active as much as we can so we can maintain our stuff and we can
like teach them something and train them for hopefully whenever this ends.
For us, our showroom is completely closed and since it's a family business, so we're
majority like family members, but for the people who are not like regular employees,
we just told them to stay at home and we will of course pay you guys at the end of the month
regardless. But for now, like there is no work, the showroom is closed and they better stay safe
We're taking it a week by week for now, you know, we cannot project how long it's going to stay,
eventually it's going to stay three, four months, no one can retain a business with no income for
three, four months, you know, so we're going to we're going to have to assess every week.
I know it's forced actually because last word in 2024, it was a Lebanon thing, you know, now it's
a global problem, prices increasing everywhere. So as I started saying, yeah, we work on
literally week by week to see how we're going to keep going. Yeah, exactly. For example,
we ship our products from Dubai, Turkey and China and right now everything is, everything stopped.
So we cannot ship from everywhere. Even suppliers don't want to take the risk. So for us,
it's completely shut down. And it's not the first time that happened, as I mentioned in 2024,
we also did this for 66 days, but the surprising thing is that after the war, back then,
the business boomed like no other, like people were really ready to go back to life again.
And we had a very big boom this time. We don't even know if it's going to last for two months or
even more. And we do not know if our clients will be able to rebuild everything that they've lost.
And on that point that Zainab makes, is that the hope that when the war ends, people are desperate
to go out and socialize. They're desperate to regain some kind of normality.
Different. Because you know, we rely a lot on the expats flying in or expats supporting their
families here. But this time, and the main bulk of expats that come or support are the expats
in the GCC, but these times the GCC is having the same problem. So we don't really know if it's going
to end that people will come the way they did last war or send enough money for people here to go
out like last war. That's right. And you don't know how long it's going to last.
Because for example, now we are in March, we're going to be in like spring and then summer. And we
as an FNB, we always rely on summer season. So if you're going to stay for example, to spring or
at the beginning of summer, you lost your season. Last war, we had kind of vision. You were trying to
understand some things. You have some factors to help you to figure things out. This war will
literally in chaos. You have nothing to get like to get a clue from, you know, like you're just
living day by day, seeing what's going to happen. Hopefully it's going to end. But the easiest
thing you can say, like we don't know, we don't know nothing. Yeah, definitely. That's the problem.
Yeah, I agree, actually, because I said this to my friends as well. As we were monitoring news
in 2024, we were almost certain that a ceasefire was going to happen eventually. Like,
everything on the ground was saying so this time, it's hugely different. And every day is
different. Like every day, you hear statements saying that, yeah, this week or next week, but
in general, like, they don't even know when they're going to stop. So anybody listening to this in
Beirut, if they do fancy going out tonight, Tarek, what's on the menu? Ah, if you come to Beaus,
you'll definitely have to try our take on show, Arma and our take on on Kibbinai.
And the dog cropped in void leaves. Sounds terrific. What's on the menu tonight at your place?
And now I'm just doing the house sandwiches. I stop the daily dish. Whenever you come to Beirut,
you have to try our chicken chimichuri. You love it. He is hoping Hado gets to serve plenty of
that chicken chimichuri in the future. Thanks to him, Tarek and Zaynab for sharing their experiences.
And just to say you heard a reference there to the GCC, that is, the region of Arab nations
bordering the Persian Gulf, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which have seen drone
and missile attacks from Iran in recent weeks. I'm Rob Young and you've been listening to the
documentary from the BBC World Service.
And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on
car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this your first day?
Oh no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.
We're married. Ah, meet a human, him to a bird.
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.
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