Beirut, Lebanon – Over the past month, Israeli jets have yet to carry out some of their largest airstrikes in Syria, apparently hitting Iranian targets. The Lebanese next door, however, may have been shaken with more fear. Some would cover under a table or sink, others hide in their cars.
The oar of low-lying jets flying in from the Mediterranean over Beirut is particularly difficult for those who experienced the August 4 port explosion that left nearly 200 people dead, thousands injured, and hundreds homeless miles.
Rana al-Dirani’s 10-year-old son shakes every time he hears an Israeli plane and wraps his arms around her.
“He asks me, ‘What is it, Mama – another explosion or is Israel bombing us?’ He’s scared and I am too, but I have to be strong in front of him,” said Rana. “I mean what the Israelis want from us? “Aren’t we suffering enough?”
Rana’s life has not escaped many of the country’s complaints.
She is a co-owner of an Arabic language school that became financially inactive as the economy collapsed last year and the local currency was depleted by more than 80 percent.
Then came the explosion. Her school was only 200 meters from the port and she was fatally damaged in the explosion. Now she and her children are infected with the coronavirus. In addition, Israeli planes awaken the memories of the explosion and frighten her children.
Israeli jets were heard in Beirut days before the explosion, too, prompting many to initially suspect that the country, which is still technically at war with Lebanon and has a deadly enemy in Hezbollah, behind the explosion.
“I was so sure the pre-port explosive sounds were jets, so now that I hear that sound I reason that this time it’s jets,” said Niamh, who ran Aaliyah’s Books, a café in Gemmeyzye, which was among the worst-hit neighborhoods in the blast.
“When I’m alone, especially if the noise is particularly loud, I decide to make a mistake on the safety side and put myself under a sink or table, feeling careless while I can do that – but also more easily. “
Israeli F-15 jet-kicks off in practice in southern Israel [File: Amir Cohen/Reuters]‘Panic situation’
Rudeynah Baalbaky celebrated with her friends on Christmas Eve in Dahiye, a southern bank of Beirut and the stronghold of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed political party and militia in Lebanon.
When she heard the jets go through the skies to bomb Masyaf, a city in northwestern Syria that is home to a military academy and a scientific research center, she thought the bombs were intended for Hezbollah .
“I felt the attack [on Lebanon] very close, very close. I hid in the car at that time, ”said Rudeynah. “I spent the last few days in a state of panic, very anxious about getting medication for my mother and father.”
The planes recalled the port explosion but sent her back in time to 2006 when she was a teenager. She used to live with her family in the western Bekaa valley in a small town where Israel saw a heavy bombing. She said her entire family has been struggling with a real post-traumatic stress disorder ever since.
“I have no views on Lebanese sovereignty and I am not surprised by Israeli crimes and how it violated international law,” Rudeynah said.
Israel has been attacking Lebanese airport for more than 10 years. But as former U.S. President Donald Trump lost the election in November and new President Joe Biden said he would return to the nuclear deal with Iran, Israel raised bombs in Syria to do most damage to Iran’s accused loads, which it says are intended to strengthen Hezbollah.
Sami Nader, a Lebanese political analyst, said that while Israel could bomb these protesters through a Syrian airfield, it is easier to pass through Lebanon.
“Israel will not break a bilateral agreement with any regional power if its planes attack Lebanese airport, but in Syria they have an agreement with Russia and it is more complicated for them,” Nader said.
“On the one hand Israel opposes Lebanese sovereignty,” he said. “But on the other hand Lebanon has also not kept its international commitments, because according to UN resolutions Hezbollah has a right to be unarmed but his weapons are great. “
Scarves may not heal
Not all Lebanese fail Israel. Carmin, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing that her political views could get into trouble, was at her home, also in Gemmeyzye, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate safely stored at her port nearby in August.
Her house was shaking around her and pieces of glass got her head. She was soaked in blood that day when Al Jazeera first met her.
Carmin is slowly renovating her flat but the divisions that the explosion has carved are deeper, and may not heal if the Israelis continue to fly the plane over her head.
And yet she blames Hezbollah more for dragging Lebanon on the path of conflict than peace with its neighbor.
“So many countries have established normal relations,” she said of the agreements reached between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain in recent months. this group with Lebanon signed a peace treaty. “
Gemmeyzye is a Christian-controlled neighborhood lined with restaurants and bars and most of its inhabitants are Lebanese who follow the West or expatriates. Neither group feels much support for Hezbollah, which describes itself as the “struggle” against Israel. In fact, people here often talk about rapprochement.
But a few kilometers away, in places like Dahiye, Israel is seen as an enemy, and even talk of peace is treated as a betrayal.
Trump’s exit from the White House fears that war will break out. He supported Israel more than any previous American president, and supported Israeli attacks against Iranian agents with its own military and diplomatic power. Biden, however, is expected to try to ease tensions, notably by going back to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
But no – one in Lebanon thinks that Israel will soon stop flying their planes over their skies.