Local peacebuilding defying Israel’s attacks on Lebanon

As I write this article, I can hear the constant sound of Israeli drones buzzing at low altitudes and terrorizing Lebanese people.

Since September, Israel has unilaterally and rapidly escalated its conflict with Hezbollah into extensive strikes across Lebanon and an unjustifiable ground invasion, which have injured and killed thousands of civilians and displaced a quarter of Lebanon's population.

My stressful daily routine has included breaches of the sound barrier and mock raids. These are not to be confused with the echoes of horrifying raids on Beirut’s Southern Suburb (Dahieh in Arabic), a highly crowded area only seen by Western media as a Hezbollah stronghold. On other occasions, Israeli strikes target areas I pass by often. By sheer luck I have not been there then.

I am among generations of Lebanese who have witnessed attacks like these. An example: On 31 October 1948, the Haganah Zionist paramilitary group – subsumed into Israel’s national army that year – massacred 70 men in Houla village. Seventy-six years later, on 29 October 2024, Israel demolished houses there. In fact, Israel has damaged or destroyed a quarter of the Southern buildings since September 2024.

This latest aggression has been huge in brutality and scale. On 23 September, Israel killed 492 Lebanese in one of the deadliest days in the country’s modern history. My energy has been scattered trying to track the attacks, especially if close to family members in my hometown in Southern Lebanon. One of these assaults killed Julia. She was a caring young woman wholeheartedly engaged in supporting internally displaced people. She also was my niece’s friend.

I nervously check on friends and colleagues when raids hit nearby. We barely sleep, not knowing if we will survive the daily frights. Worse yet, what toxins are we inhaling? An Israeli strike on paramedics 2.3 kilometres away from my house is believed to have involved internationally banned phosphorus bombs. On several nights we suffocate with heavy smells of combustion.

However, nothing compares to the horrors inflicted on Dahieh. I accompanied a friend to check on his badly damaged house. The scale of destruction in whole neighbourhoods is apocalyptic. Tall buildings have fallen into rubble, some crushing their inhabitants. The landscape has become black, burned, losing every colour of life. Cars are smashed. Trees are uprooted; others turned grey, carrying layers of dust and ashes. My clothes and shoes were contaminated. Disinfecting them was easy. But how to cleanse our souls from this darkness?

A building in the Southern Suburb of Beirut badly hit by an Israeli strike. Photo taken by Sawssan Abou-Zahr on 30 November.

I had anger, fear, anxiety, fatigue and frustration boiling inside, and felt it was more useful to volunteer to help, than to write. As the hostilities escalated, I decided to do both. I realised carrying our voices is a form of resistance.

We are not numbers. Our stories matter. Here are some.

Peacebuilding: relief and conflict resolution

Like their counterparts in Gaza and the West Bank, Lebanese peacebuilders have been struggling with shrinking international funds and minimised salaries – forcing many to find other jobs, draining them physically and mentally. Some are dealing with personal challenges as they became internally displaced, sleeping at their workplaces because they cannot afford overpriced rents in relatively safe areas. Frustrated by the lack of equipped and decent shelters, organisations hosted random citizens alongside their employees. Others had offices damaged by Israeli strikes, and changed locations which limited their functionality, especially in the South.

The peacebuilders who remained functional are heroes. They immediately halted pre-planned projects. As the scale of internal displacement is unprecedented, affecting nearly one quarter of the population, multi-layered relief emerged as a pressing need. As did strengthening the fragile inner peace to ensure smooth cohabitation between host communities and newcomers beyond the chronic sectarian rifts and political mistrust.

Per definition, nonviolent conflict resolution is a core peacebuilding tool. Fighters for Peace – repentant combatants of the civil war – visited displaced people in jam-packed schools-turned-shelters, to ease their concerns and train the youth on peace mediation and stability advocacy. The once-armed young men who fought each other before becoming peacebuilders with MARCH volunteered to help those displaced, spreading unity and empathy. Permanent Peace Movement held workshops for newcomers and host communities, promoting peacebuilding and conflict prevention, while monitoring the gendered impacts of the Israeli aggressions.

Simultaneously, peacebuilders called for local volunteers and donations of food, medicine, mattresses and blankets. Farah Al Ataa prepared a massive shelter, weeks before the government decided to turn Beirut’s main sport stadium into a housing facility.

Not only was the official relief plan slow in responding to the huge needs on ground, it excluded vulnerable groups affected by the attacks, such as Palestinian and Syrian refugees, on the pretext they fall under the mandates of UNRWA and UNHCR.

Many peacebuilding organisations filled the gap, supporting Palestinians and Syrians, denouncing injustice and rejection in relief.

Meanwhile, over-cramped Palestinian refugees’ camps in relatively safe areas hosted Palestinian and Lebanese fleeing the brutal Israeli raids. In Ein El Hilweh and Beddawi camps, female peacebuilders rallied women to cook for the displaced. And the Palestinian Red Cresent undertook several rescue missions.

Anti-Racism Movement and numerous volunteers stepped in to protect migrant workers who had been abandoned by their employers, and to enact the official relief plan.

Damage in one neighbourhood in the Southern Suburb of Beirut. Photo taken by Sawssan Abou-Zahr on 2 November.

Outside-the-box peacebuilding

Alongside the ‘traditional’ peacebuilding actors long established in the field, new ones emerged in a heartwarming déjà-vu of the aftermath of the devastating Beirut blast of 2020.

Wrongly described by some in Lebanon as an elitist activity, peacebuilding is – in times of systematic violations like the Israeli attacks on Lebanon – every display of life against the massive destruction and targeted killings. It goes beyond rigid and Westernised definitions. Listening to displaced strangers and supporting them despite one’s own insecurities is peacebuilding. Putting off paid jobs to volunteer is peacebuilding too.

The medical teams and journalists working around the clock in life-threatening conditions are peacebuilders; but also, hairdressers offering free cuts, chefs cooking free meals, merchants donating clothes and heating tools, as well as clubbing spots and theatres turned into shelters. This peacebuilding is therapeutic and rewarding.

Julia, the beautiful soul killed by Israel, left a legacy of goodness. Her father and friends established ‘Julia’s fist’ to continue supporting the displaced and those in need, as she was doing on her last day on earth. That’s collective peacebuilding.

A man walks past damaged buildings in a neighbourhood in the Southern Suburb of Beirut. Photo taken by Sawssan Abou-Zahr on 30 November.

A ceasefire is not justice

There is no space here to tell the story of every Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian murdered by Israel in this brutal attack on my country. We must honour them by seeking justice on their behalf, equally for the internally displaced who lost everything in a blink, and for us stranded in traumas.

Justice cannot be reduced to an apparent end to violence; no justice is served without accountability.

Further, the US-France sponsored ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel that went into force on 27 November did not bring respite and safety to Lebanese people. Instead, it was violated within a day. As of 3 December, Israel stands accused of 100 violations and has threatened to 'go deeper' target the Lebanese state in full-scale war if the truce collapses. At the time of writing, Hezbollah has responded to Israel's violations with a 'warning' strike on an Israeli military post on occupied Lebanese land.

As this article was being finalised in early December, Israel was still launching airstrikes, imposing curfews on Lebanese territory, and firing on Lebanese civilians eager to return to their destroyed homes in the South.

I and many others fear it is an additional phase of Israel’s war on Lebanon, further jeopardising the prospects of peacebuilding in a weak state with an exhausted population.

As we humbly appreciate the relief aid sent to Lebanon, there is no ‘relief’ without internationally ending Israel’s impunity for war crimes committed in front of the Global North’s complicit eyes. This far-reaching goal has started in theory with the arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court. Arrests require patience and persistence, both a luxury at this time, but will contribute to sustainable peacebuilding for Lebanon, Palestine and beyond.

A civilian building in Beirut's Southern Suburb damaged by an Israeli raid. Photo taken by Sawssan Abou-Zahr on 2 November.