To everyone who’s been asking me, I have been saying I am well. 

When fear or depression are luxuries you can’t afford, you have to be well.

I make jokes about the safety of my apartment, in my friendly-yet-highly-guarded neighborhood, protected by the former warlord of my choice. 

My team is secure. My daughters’ school relocated. My parents live far from threats. My nephews, my friends, and my loved ones have left the country, or moved to sheltered coasts and mountains. 

The idea of how good I have become at differentiating between the sound of a sonic boom and that of a fighter jet is disturbing, yet it gives me some kind of weird comfort, unsettled by the constant buzz of drones roving above my head twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. 

My own world is safe. I know that there’s still a risk of being on the wrong road at the wrong moment, but that’s something I can ignore. 

Death is something I am reminded of every minute of the day.

But it’s not “mine” to have to deal with.

Death is now a facial expression etched on the faces of men, women, and children who escaped its grasp now making homes in the classrooms of the four schools in my block, their cars parked around. 

It is now the distant sound of explosions that fill my ears, as I wonder how many have lost their lives in their homes in the nearby southern suburbs. 

In the face of this kind of death– the kind that makes headlines until it no longer does– I navigate a torrent of emotions and conflicting feelings as carefully as I can. 

I keep it to numbers, just to maintain my sanity.

I try not to think too much about the faces, the names, the lives. When I hear about a neighborhood in Dahieh being targeted, I tell myself everyone must have left– that it’s only buildings being bombed. I try not to dwell on the ‘unimportant’ things that a missile can erase in seconds: the stories, the memories, the photos, a child’s comforting toy, an elder’s favorite chair…all the little pieces of life that, in the face of death, stand no chance of being saved–and the regrets I know will follow. 

Sometimes I find myself blaming those who stayed for failing to protect themselves and their loved ones. I blame Hizbullah for dragging us into a war we didn’t choose, and then I remind myself that, no matter how unforgivable Hizbullah is or how devious Iran’s commitment to fighting to the last drop of Lebanese blood may be, it is Israel carrying out the killings. 

I laugh at the naivety of those who cheer for Israel—as if history has taught them nothing; as if salvation could follow a massacre; as if we haven’t already seen it all. 

The idea that Israel’s defeat of Hizbullah could somehow be a victory for Lebanon is one I find difficult to entertain. 

Not only for ethical reasons, or even patriotic ones, but for logical and historical ones. Israel defeated the PLO in 1982; a year later, Hizbullah was born. Israel assassinated Hizbullah’s founders, and more radical leaders took their place. Anyone who knows the history of this country understands that it’s sheer madness to think that a political solution imposed by an Israeli military victory in Lebanon,could lead to a happy ending, to the rebuilding of a Lebanon we dream of and fight for. 

Such a theory can only stand on the assumption that Hizbullah is Lebanon’s only problem, and that Iran is the sole country exploiting Lebanon for its proxy wars. But one truth doesn’t cancel out another. Iran’s role as an occupier doesn’t erase Israel’s occupation of more than two decades. Iran’s present control doesn’t negate Israel’s previous aggressions or its future threats. 

In my country, Hizbullah is my enemy, but it doesn’t mean I wish for its defeat by Israel. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. The enemy of my enemy has killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza and over 2500 of my fellow citizens. 

I keep it to numbers to maintain my sanity, but to keep my humanity, I must keep reminding myself what those numbers truly represent. 

I keep my distance and somehow turn it into a political matter that needs to be addressed. This is not the time to get too emotional; that won’t help anyone anyway. I don’t know how and when that happened but I know that I now find myself adopting a very pragmatic approach in facing reality with a complete sense of denial of how close death really is.

It doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty about it. 

But guilt too, is something you learn to normalize. 

If you can’t beat it, live with it. If you can’t control it, ignore it. 

Is this a self-defense mechanism in the face of complete helplessness? Perhaps it is. It seems to be working. Until it doesn’t. Until it gets personal. 

Death as a Private Matter  

It’s Saturday. I’m driving to meet my friends at Paul, now that our usual meeting spot, Souk El Tayyeb, has been turned into a community kitchen catering for the displaced. 

My friend Zeina is calling me, and I am not too worried–it’s not her usual time to call, as she’s usually busy preparing to go on air for her weekly show abroad. I don’t think much of it and I am ready to tell her about the lovely dinner from the night before–one of those gatherings that renews our hope in the future of this country and reminds us why we keep fighting for it. 

I wanted to tell her that, on Friday evening –the night of the dinner, from a lovely garden in the Metn mountains overlooking a sea of lights, we could faintly see Dahieh, Beirut’s southern suburbs, being bombed. Eight airstrikes in total, with an undetermined number of casualties. Inside, we gathered around a table large enough to unintentionally fit the grandsons and granddaughters of those who once embodied all the contradictions of this country: Maronite Sheikhs, Shiite Sayyeds, former communists, a full spectrum of bourgeois, and even refugees. The latter included me in part–my grandmother was a Circassian refugee from the Caucasus who loved Lebanon but never stopped speaking of her homeland.  

But before I could say anything, I heard Zeina crying, the word “Papa” being the only one she muttered in between sobs.

I understood that my friend had lost her father.   

I am still stunned by how fast I moved from “ I am so sorry for your loss” to “ Let’s figure out how to get you here.” 

I knew that, war or not, there was no way I could convince her not to come. For the terminally sick and their families, especially those living abroad, the fear of death arriving at an inconvenient time has been overwhelming. What if the bombing is too heavy? What if they don’t get to say their goodbyes? Those of us still in the country may be closer to physical harm, but those watching their homeland’s destruction from afar are no less invested or traumatized. 

I knew there was nothing simple about a trip to Beirut these days. Only MEA is flying, with limited routes, and every little detail can turn into a nightmare. The only available flight on the day is at 10 p.m., around the same time the bombings intensify. The airport road is relatively secure, but we now have a rule to minimize risk and avoid ‘unnecessary’ trips, making the usual pickups out of the question. So, we call Georges, our “airport road” security-adviser-driver. 

Those of us living in Beirut have almost normalized all this absurdity. Regardless of how dystopian the whole mood in the airport is nowadays, we find ourselves focusing on the silver lining: airport processes happen much faster, and everyone is quite kind.  

It’s stunning. If only we could be so kind to each other during times of peace. In times of war, we seem to be more empathetic and less rushed; we even manage to queue. 

A nighttime trip to Saida is out of the question. My friend flew in from another country, taking the risk of boarding a plane that might land uncomfortably close to missiles hitting “precise targets” within sight from the airport. Yet, it’s in another city, where she has to spend the last night with her father. 

Death is back to being what it is. 

The sense of loss is real. It’s personal. It hurts. 

But somehow, it brings comfort. 

In Lebanon, as in most Arab countries, death comes with its set of rituals–the kind of rituals we say we hate, until we’re denied them. Only then do we realize that deep down, we cherish those rituals–not just enough to preserve them, but to feel an immense sense of loss when we can’t be part of them.

Much of these rituals can be irritating, especially when we’re younger. They seem like trivialities, yet they soften our experience of death, if only through the distraction of the noise we create around it. 

For Zeina, the fact that her brother couldn’t make it to the funeral–because no flight routes could get him to Lebanon in less than three days– was devastating. We tried to console her. At least she made it. At least a funeral could be held, small and intimate, but peaceful and warm enough to close a chapter in her family’s life. 

Faced with a personal loss, I let my guard down. As I mourned my friend’s father, I also felt the need to grieve for the innocent lives I didn’t know, taken by Israel. 

Sitting on Zeina’s balcony, I looked at the city, wondering how safe it was going to be and how long that would last. Although Saida is far from the border, we are in the South. 

The answer came much faster than I thought it would. 

Two minutes into our journey from the house to the cemetery, a huge explosion shook the car and everyone inside. It wasn’t a sonic boom–I could feel Zeina’s hand gripping mine. In the back, Diana and Reem were trying to locate where the sound had come from. 

I took a turn, and between the buildings, we could see thick smoke rising from the area we had just left. Zeina’s cousin, driving in the car ahead, stopped and came over to tell us that Haret Saida had been hit– but everyone in the family who stayed behind in the apartment –which was 400 meters away from Saida–-was safe.

In the hour that followed at the cemetery, the collage of life and death took an even more surreal dimension. 

The religious center attached to the graveyard is sheltering displaced families, and among the graves, little children play and share stories of how they left their houses–competing over whose house was more damaged and who came closest to death before escaping. 

Nearby, some women sit drinking coffee, while others clean the floors and walls of what have become their temporary homes. 

The drone hovered above us again, reminding us that no matter how hard we try to ignore it, war is here. Just as it disregards the casualties it deems collateral damage, it wouldn’t pause out of respect for a natural death, allowing my friend to say her goodbye in peace. 

There’s all that, and then there’s this incredibly bizarre blend of sadness and defiance. 

War or not, we were there. My friend buried her father next to his beloved brother, in a beautiful cemetery filled with fig and laurel trees, overlooking an October sea of a wonderful blue. 

Today, there are prayers, and tomorrow– and whenever she can from now on– Zeina will return to play her father his favorite song: Abdel Wahab’s Don’t Ask Why. 

War or not, we bury parts of ourselves in this land that is ours, and no matter how far we go, it will keep bringing us back.

As we returned home, the news started flooding in. A Hizbullah cadre had been targeted. The game of numbers resurfaced once again: Two dead, then four, then eight, and by the time we left, the final toll had reached 29, including a nine-month-old baby. A Hizbullah cadre no one has ever heard of, or so we thought. The man–the so-called “Hizbullah cadre”, had a sister known throughout Saida. Souad, the nurse who had faithfully cared for families tending to their sick loved ones, had just lost not only nine family members, including a nine-months-old, but also whatever was left of her own sense of security.

The Second Death of the Dead

We leave Saida before nightfall. In the car, Diana is playing Sinatra’s The Best is Yet to Come. “I sure hope so,” I say with a laugh, as more news keeps coming. Diana takes a call from Joumana, who tells her their family home has been bombed. Joumana’s father, the renowned painter Abdel Hamid Baalbaki, had built the house over many years, and within its walls, the siblings in this family of artists grew into who they are today. 

What hurt most for Joumana was knowing her parents’ graves, resting in the garden of their home, had been damaged. 

She recognized her home and parents’ graveyard from a video circulating of her hometown, Odaisseh. The worst part is, no one from her family can go check out the actual damage.

To her, it feels like a second death, demanding a second funeral and a second burial. 

I think of Diana too. Her house in Tebnine and the next door cemetery where her father is buried have been hit, and just like Joumana, she will have to wait for the war to end before she could check on her childhood home and the graves of her loved ones. 

She doesn’t have to say it, but I know that no matter how painful the damage might be, she will rebuild. 

She will put a flower on her fathers grave and whisper words of comfort. 

The Death of Places and Things 

War is war and Israel has the right to defend its border, but even war has rules, and what Israel is destroying goes far beyond Hizbullah and its military infrastructure. The intent of collective punishment is clear and there’s no amount of evidence that could justify this level of indiscriminate savagery. 

Like many others, Ali Mrad had to watch his family home being destroyed live on camera. 

Ali, the son of a family of communists and a professor of political science, is known for his opposition to Hizbullah. As one of the main Shiite figures openly defying the party, he even ran in the elections against them, fully aware he had no chance of winning in his own district. None of that mattered. Ali’s house was one of many villas detonated from distance after being booby-trapped. 

The Israelis destroyed it knowing it had no connection to Hizbullah or its military bases. 

Tyre is under attack, with the old town being erased– just like the historic heart of Nabatiyeh– taking with it parts of our memory, history, and culture. All eyes are also on Baalbeck, one of the oldest cities in the world, and its temple, now under threat. 

Around me, friends are safe but dealing with unimaginable losses. Hazem, who once joked that Shaqra was “prettier than Berlin,” now shares images of destruction, capturing what is left of his beloved town. His attempts at humor can no longer mask the deep pain and anger. 

For over a year now, Israel has been exacting vengeance for the war crime that Hamas committed on October 7. The genocide in Gaza and the destruction in Lebanon showcase its military superiority and dispel the myth of an “ethical army.” 

But has it made the life of any Israeli any safer? 

The simple answer is an absolute no. Only a just solution for the Palestinian people will put an end to the cycles of violence.

Until then, it’s going to be more shades of death, and as much hope as possible and as much love as needed.