Bombings in Lebanon

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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.

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