Lebanon: Nothing About This is Normal
Lebanese people are once again facing the prospect of an all-out war between Israel and Hizbullah.
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Welcome to IWPR’s Frontline Update, your go-to source to hear from journalists and local voices at the front lines of conflict.
THE BIG PICTURE
This week, IWPR Middle East and North Africa country director Nadia Samet-Warren writes movingly about the resilience and joie de vivre of the Lebanese people, once again facing the prospect of an all-out war between Israel and Hizbullah.
“Any type of conflict and instability you can think of, Lebanon has experienced it,” Samet-Warren said.
“Colonisation, invasion and attack; civil and proxy wars, economic collapse and political assassinations, not to mention regional turmoil and vast influxes of refugees. In recent years, day-to-day life in Lebanon has been almost impossible.”
VOICES FROM THE FRONTLINE
Tensions continue to spiral in the region. On July 24, Israel assassinated Hezbollah senior military commander Fu’ad Shukr in Beirut.
An IWPR colleague, whose home is just two blocks away, told Samet-Warren about the immediate aftermath of the strike.
“We could feel the building rumbling beneath us,” she recounted. “Outside, chaos erupted. Neighbours were screaming, knocking on doors, and urging everyone to leave.”
WHY IT MATTERS
Fragile societies face multiple threats, heightened by widespread disinformation.
“It is not easy to live in a region that has experienced continuous wars and instability,” Yousuf, a humanitarian worker in Beirut, told us last November.
“Lebanon has gone through very hard times since the civil war began in 1975; we have been further shaken by the knock-on effect of the conflict in Syria and the devastating August 4 2020 warehouse explosion in Beirut. . . . And the whole media space is rife with disinformation and misinformation. We don’t know what to believe,” he said.
International journalists and aid workers – courageous as they are – have the ability to leave.
For the local community of humanitarians and reporters – and of course civilians themselves – the situation is far more complicated.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Whether in the Middle East, Ukraine or elsewhere, it is local civilians who inevitably bear the brunt of suffering. This should never be normalised; it is the job of journalism to tell these stories over and over again, with nuance, humanity and urgency.
