Lebanese worldwide fear for their homeland and loved ones as violence escalates
It’s been a year since Jomana Siddiqui visited Lebanon, where her father was born – and is now buried. She planned to return there soon; this time, she thought, she would bring her two teenage daughters.
Instead, Siddiqui, who lives in California, now worries about his relatives there. As she watches from a distance the violence and recent escalation Israeli military campaign in return for Hezbollah in Lebanon, Siddiqui thinks about the people she met during her visit, the kindness and generosity she encountered.
She thinks about her father’s grave – when and if she will visit it again. Her voice bursts with emotion. It was heartbreaking, she said.
“It looks like the universal story of the Lebanese people,” she said. “They have to keep leaving and not know when they can come back.”
From the United States to South Africa, Cyprus, Brazil and beyond, many members of Lebanon’s far-flung and large diaspora are grappling with the waves of violence – grieving, gripped by fear for loved ones and for their homeland, trying to find ways to help.
About 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians and fighters from the militant group Hezbollah, have been killed and some 1.2 million people driven from their homes since Israel escalated its attacks in late September and said it plans to push Hezbollah away from the shared border of the countries.
For Lina Kayat, who moved to South Africa almost 36 years ago but still has a large family in Lebanon, the violence and tensions there have echoes of previous turbulent chapters.
“We have been experiencing a civil war for a long time; I was just seven years old,” she said. “It feels like history is repeating itself. … It is unknown who will be killed next.”
Kayat, who lives in the South African coastal city of Durban, speaks daily with her family, including her mother and her sister.
“They are very scared and worried about what is going to happen,” she said.
Generations of Lebanese have struggled with whether to leave in search of better opportunities or escape various times of turmoil – from a fifteen-year civil war to military occupations, bombings and political assassinations – or remain in a Lebanon that despite many scars still leave their mark. attraction for many. Lebanon – home of several religious groupsincluding Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims, is proud of its large size emigrant communities, including successful businessmen and celebrities of Lebanese descent.
The current military escalation is unfolding amid fears that fighting could spread in the region and comes as the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza approaches the grim one-year mark.
“What is happening over Gaza is almost too much to bear,” said James Zogby, president of the Washington DC-based Arab American Institute.
“It almost makes you physically ill just trying to understand the extent of the trauma,” added Zogby, whose father was born in Lebanon.
Lebanon was already on edge and struggling under the weight of an economic collapse, the consequences of a huge port explosion in 2020 and other crises. The country has been without a president for two years.
Against such a bleak backdrop, Zogby wonders what will happen to the displaced.
‘Who is going to take care of them? Where are health care services coming from… if the country is already as overburdened as it is and on the brink of collapse?’ he said. “When will it finally collapse? And who will care?”
According to him, the pain is fueled by his anger about the American response to the destruction in Gaza and now to the escalation in Lebanon.
“There’s a feeling of powerlessness, a feeling of almost despair that, you know, can get out of hand. And as long as nothing happens here to stop it, it will get worse.”
Akram Khater, director of the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University, said Lebanese who left since the earliest diaspora have contributed greatly to Lebanon’s economic well-being, sending large amounts of remittances.
Watching the escalation in Lebanon, where he was born and raised, has been traumatizing all over again, he said.
“I find myself in the midst of a whirlwind of unresolved emotions arising from this recurring nightmare,” he said. “But even in these times, our community comes together to create solidarity and provide comfort and comfort to each other.”
Recently, hundreds of Lebanese flags filled the night sky in Dearborn, Michigan, as some did attended a demonstration to support Lebanon and protest the Israeli offensive there.
At Sao Paulo International Airport, two Lebanese brothers living in Brazil recently had a solemn reunion. They said eight of their loved ones – their sister, brother-in-law, four of their cousins and two of their cousins’ children – had been killed in one of the attacks in Lebanon.
Hussein Zeineddine, one of the brothers, was vacationing with his family in southern Lebanon when the area was hit by Israeli attacks, he told The Associated Press. He and his family moved to a safer location until they could book flights back to Brazil. “My wife cried and asked us to leave. We left with only basic items. And shortly afterwards my sister’s house was bombed,” he said after his arrival.
“It’s going to be difficult here. But for the people there it will be more difficult,” he said.
In Cyprus, Rosaline Ghoukassian said the vast majority of Lebanese do not want this war. She moved to Cyprus with her husband Raffi Garabedian and their daughter Maria after the ammonium nitrate explosion at Beirut port in 2020, which killed more than 200 people. She said she was disappointed by it Lebanon’s political leadership and also complained Hezbollah’s influence.
“We knew this was coming,” she says. “The problem lies in Lebanon. … Because we don’t have good government.”
Their decision to leave Lebanon was never about money but about safety, as their daughter explained in a letter she wrote in class in Cyprus: “I don’t want to go there because I was saved in the explosion, and I don’t want to either doing. Go live there, because I don’t want to die.”
The family chose to stay.
“I’m not here to make thousands of euros. No. I’m just here to live. To be happy, to be safe. This is what I want. To live,” Garabedian said.
Hezbollah began shooting at Israel the day after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, with the militants killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 others hostage. Since then, Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.
Back in California, Siddiqui said it was a challenge to cope.
“You pick up the phone; you hesitate to open it because you are afraid of what you are going to see, but you have to.”
She talks to friends and others around her who can identify.
“We’re all feeling a little sad, depressed, helpless and run down,” she said. “We can do things like raise money, donate, protest or anything like that, but at the end of the day it still weighs on you.”
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AP journalists Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg; Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed reporting.
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