The Israeli drones seem louder and lower than ever as I wake up at about 3am.
I walk through my apartment in a daze and out on to the balcony, the word “apocalyptic” entering my mind. I check social media to see four warnings about upcoming air raids in Beirut’s southern suburbs from the Israeli army’s Arabic spokesman. An explosion sounds in the distance. A Lebanese journalist posts that there have been nine air strikes so far. I watch a video of black smoke rising. I go back to sleep.
Back in early September, I spent four days sitting in a lecture hall in Cambridge University. This was a summer school in international humanitarian law, run by the British Red Cross.
During the day, representatives from armies, air forces and navies, humanitarian organisations and academia, discussed case studies involving fictitious countries. They listened to lectures on what is outlawed and what is permissible in war. In the evenings, they ate three-course meals. I was the only journalist there.
The question I asked at the closing session was about proportionality. How many innocent people could be killed or have their lives destroyed in pursuit of military targets? Wasn’t it clear – with tens of thousands now dead in Gaza (44 per cent of them children, according to the United Nations) – that something had gone desperately wrong?
I couldn’t have imagined that, weeks later, I would be on the hard end of this discussion, standing in the rubble of air strikes, in the country I have called home since January, hearing devastating stories of civilian deaths.
Over the past two months, I have had an education in how fragile the human body is. How it can be pierced and sliced and chopped into pieces, parts scattered and medics left with the challenge of putting them back together, trying to assess how many full lives they used to make up.
Though I’ve heard people in Ireland calling this a troubled part of the world, this war was far from inevitable. I know so many Lebanese people who were committed to building their future here, to improving their beautiful country. Some of them still are.
Yet simple questions have now become dangerous to speak aloud: “how are you?” or “how was your day?” Instead, you ask yourself. Was that noise an air strike, a sonic boom or just the shattering of my sanity?
The first time I met a big group of friends after the September 23rd escalation in hostilities was almost two weeks later. It felt like a lifeline, a chance to exchange information.
It felt like coming up from under water, even though there was guilt, too, about gathering socially when the bombing hits so near and the streets are lined with displaced people. I put a tourniquet in my handbag, just in case. When I got to the meeting place, we hugged each other in relief.
People have changed; they often oscillate between manic, tired and irritable. Our thoughts are interrupted by small things; the almost constant buzzing of drones, or checking social media for evacuation warnings. Wait, are those small things? How is it possible that we now see them as normal?
This normalisation might be one of the tricks of war. We stop pointing out the horror and the wrongdoing. We downplay the reality to ourselves, to our families and, as a result, to the world. Sadness or anger impede our ability to work, to function. But maybe we need to hold on to those feelings so we can speak clearly, shout loudly, about the brutality of this?
Some places are “safer” than others, but true safety no longer exists. I saw that in my colleague’s face as he taped a sign saying “press” to the roof of our vehicle, before we embarked on a lengthy drive. It was meant for the Israeli surveillance drones to see, to spare us, though mid-taping he asked me if I thought it would help at all.
The answer is that I don’t know any more. The Israeli military has said it would never deliberately target journalists, but the facts and numbers tell a very different story. Our colleagues in Gaza have been killed in large numbers. In Lebanon, there have been such casualties too. My Lebanese colleagues are covering this war bravely, while worrying about their own families.
A lot of war involves waiting. We’re waiting for accreditations, for evacuation warnings, for air strikes, for permission to go to bombing sites. We’re waiting to see if peace can ever come again, and how much will be irreparably broken when it finally does.
I get into bed, listen to the screech of another missile rushing through the air. An explosion follows. I check the location and the map: two kilometres away. I fall asleep.
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