A photograph of my neighborhood in Beirut would show a place little changed by the events of the past few months. True, those begging on the street are mostly Lebanese Shi’a rather than Syrian Sunnis of previous years but the vast wave of Shi’a from the South has returned to their towns and villages if not their actual homes.  If anything, the streets seem a little desolate at times as if the city were permanently stuck at 7 a.m.. Drivers are again going the wrong direction on one-way streets as there is often so little traffic.

But step into this photograph and one immediately senses the change.  The menacing hum of Israeli drones is a continuing reminder that Lebanon, having no air force, is completely exposed.  This is a violation of the ceasefire but what country is going to enforce that?   The humming sound alters how one hears airplane flights overhead – are they Middle Eastern Airlines planes coming in to land or are they Israeli bombers reminding us of who controls the skies?  So far, my windows haven’t rattled so I think it’s just been MEA.

The Lebanese themselves seem at the breaking point.  My pharmacist said that he can’t keep up with the demand for Prozac and other psychopharmaceuticals.  He takes them himself.  Friends who previously coped by gardening or hiking tell me that they are just drinking.  I put one friend in touch with AA and Al-Anon. Unlike in America, where war is a video game called “Shock and Awe”, here war is felt in the gut.  A lawyer friend lost his sister when she was mortally wounded while taking dinner to their 95-year old aunt – the missile that killed her was aiming for a man who was running in her direction. The local hospital had been hit and shuttered. By the time the UN had negotiated with the Israelis for permission to transport her to a hospital in Nabatieh, it was too late.  A journalist friend lost three colleagues in an Israeli attack that injured four others where they had been housed for weeks as they reported on the war in the south.  As Israel has a long history of targeting  journalists no one seriously thinks this was anything but another war crime accorded impunity by the West. Relatives of a friend, a Christian family north of Beirut, bravely rented their family house in the village to an extended family of internally displaced Shi’a only to have it pancaked by an Israeli missile. Two survived.  

But the war has other, less visible effects, like the children whose education was once again interrupted because of security concerns on the roads or the use of school buildings as shelters. Or take my elderly friend from church, a woman in her nineties in general good health.  For months she was unable to find green leafy vegetables at the market as they come from the agricultural areas of the besieged south.  Her intestinal issues became so severe that she now has a prolapsed rectum.  Today I took her to the hospital for surgery tomorrow — a partial colectomy and an exterior bag. Our church is praying for her survival.

Lebanese society has also taken a gut punch.  The million internally displaced fleeing to Beirut and north were mostly Shi’a seeking shelter in Christian and Sunni areas.  Many refused to rent to them, fearing an Israeli strike or for reasons of general antipathy.  The ghosts of the civil war were roused with a fury when the militias like the one down the street from me began breaking into apartments to make them available to those who faced sleeping in their cars or on the street.  This is what it looks like when there is no effective government. The Shi’a have suffered greatly from this war only to have lost power and prestige.  They are feared and resented, they are angry and distraught.  Rubbing salt into the wounds, here is a link to the messages the Israelis left on two surviving homes in the South: https://today.lorientlejour.com/multimedia/1446252/in-images-provations-stars-of-david-soldiers-names-in-khiam-the-israelis-scrawled-messages-on-walls.html

There is an ominous Schadenfreude among some Lebanese over the recent fate of the Shi’a and Hezbollah.  But they have not been spared: Israel hit areas it generally doesn’t strike to the tell the Lebanese that they will suffer a collective punishment if they don’t rid themselves of Hezbollah. That isn’t going to happen.

The so-called ceasefire has been extended although Lebanese trying to return to their homes in the South have been shot at and killed.  Like everyone here, I just try to go about my business as there is nothing to be done. Nasrallah’s funeral is Sunday the 23^rd in South Beirut.  Might be a good day to stay home.  We’ll see.