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Some had panic attacks, others burst into tears. Ten months of violence have exhausted the Lebanese, who live in the pain of a major conflict with Israel that reenacts the trauma of past wars.
“I felt like the house was going to collapse (…) Sometimes I would freeze or start crying”” said a 29-year-old woman who lives near Saida, the main city in the south of the country.
She was 11 years old and working as a contract worker for an NGO when war broke out between the pro-Iranian Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, and bombs fell near her home.
“These sounds will take you back to memory”The young woman, who did not want to be named, added that mental health is sometimes still taboo in this country.
“I already suffered from anxiety and depression, but my mental health got worse” She explained that it had started in October. She said she could not afford the treatment because the hostilities had slowed down her work.
Since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, cross-border exchanges of fire have occurred daily between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Israeli army. On July 30, Israel launched an airstrike near Beirut, killing a Hezbollah military leader, which has the potential to turn into a wider conflict. The assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran was blamed on Israel.
Iran and Hezbollah have pledged to avenge these assassinations, while the Lebanese are holding their breath.
Many airlines have suspended flights to Beirut, while Western prime ministers have urged their nationals to leave the country.
‘I can’t breathe’
This week, Charbel Chaaya, 23, completed her first flight as Israeli planes flew low over Beirut and broke the sound barrier over the capital ‘Panic attack’.
“I couldn’t breathe, and my legs were numb. We didn’t know what it was at the time, just like what happened on August 4.””, confided the young man, who studies law in France and whose family lives near Beirut.
On August 4, 2020, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history occurred at the Port of Beirut, devastating entire neighborhoods and killing more than 220 people.
Laila Farhood, professor of psychiatry and mental health at the American University of Beirut, explains: ‘Cumulative trauma’ Lebanese are left feeling stressed, anxious, depressed and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Trauma, she explains, is passed down through generations.
Between 1975 and 1990, Lebanon experienced a long civil war and several clashes with Israel, most notably the 1982 Israeli invasion of the country and siege of Beirut.
“What’s happening now is awakening buried traumas”the Lebanese war trauma expert added.
Layal Hamzé of Embrace, a nonprofit that runs a mental health center and suicide prevention hotline, said Lebanese people are now “More sensitive to all noise”.
On social networks, many people called for an end to the setting off of fireworks at weddings or the firing of automatic weapons during bachelor’s degree celebrations, which is a common practice in some regions.
“Adrenaline levels are already high. Anxiety increases (…) and so does fear about the future and how things might go wrong””, estimates Layal Hamzé.
“uncertain”
Fears of all-out war come at a time when public services, especially the health sector, have been reeling for four years from an economic crisis that has plunged large parts of the population into poverty.
Coping mechanisms vary widely from person to person: some people “Meeting” And others “Get closer to the people around you” Layal Hamzé continued, “To make myself feel less alone.”
Dancer Andrea Fahed, 28, whose apartment was damaged by the port blast, panicked when she heard the supersonic blast this week.
She said she had “Lucky” Became a dancer because of her colleagues “We laugh together, we move together…we let go”.
Now she leaves the windows open to prevent them from being broken during the next explosion.
We live in “Uncertainty, anything can happen”she whispered. If war “The situation in Gaza is so intense, why won’t it happen here?”
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