Around 1,900 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli attacks since mid-September.
Members of the Lebanese diaspora at Concordia watch in horror as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon continues and more than one million people are forced to flee their homes amid Israeli airstrikes.
Jad Harb is an international student and the president of the Lebanese Student Association (LSA) at Concordia. For him, the helplessness of being away from his family in Lebanon has been one of the toughest things to deal with in recent weeks.
“You thank God from one end, but at the same time, the burden is twice [as heavy] because all your family, all your friends, your brothers and sisters, your parents, they’re all there,” Harb said. “You are just watching from behind the screen. You really feel helpless.”
On Sept. 17, pagers, used by Hezbollah to communicate, exploded simultaneously in Lebanon, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000. It was soon revealed that Israel’s intelligence service and military hid explosives in the pagers used by Hezbollah. On Sept. 18, another 20 people were killed, and over 450 were injured as walkie-talkies and other equipment exploded.
The BBC has reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have carried out thousands of air strikes on Lebanon since, which the IDF claims were targeted at Hezbollah. It has also reported that around 1,900 people have been killed in Lebanon between mid-September and Oct. 24.
Last year, approximately three per cent of Concordia’s international undergraduate students were from Lebanon. That is in addition to students from the Lebanese diaspora in Montreal, the largest in Canada, which included 30,000 people in 2021, according to Statistics Canada.
Harb explained that he sometimes wished he could be back home with his parents, because it would bring him more peace of mind to know that he would at least be there with them if anything were to happen.
“From the time you open up your phone until you open up WhatsApp to give a call, for the call to ring, and for your mom or your dad to answer, that time frame is the worst,” Harb said. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone because it’s a very, very, very hard feeling.”
As for the LSA, Harb stated that their focus had changed to raising funds and material donations for humanitarian organizations helping civilians in Lebanon, such as the Lebanese Red Cross and offering support to the Lebanese community at Concordia.
“We were in touch with two or three mental health clinics that are run by Lebanese students, which we are hoping to be able to give access to all Lebanese students,” Harb said. “Just in order to help, even if it was one per cent, to help them to be able to continue their studies. For them to be able to just live [day by day].”
Sarah Sokkar is a Lebanese-Canadian Concordia student who grew up in Egypt. She has family in Lebanon, many of whom have had to flee north from Beirut to Tripoli. She shared her frustration and disappointment at what she considers Israel’s lack of differentiation between civilians and Hezbollah members in their strikes.
She said that in early October, Israel hit the cemetery where her grandparents were buried with an air strike.
“It’s incredibly frustrating, and I’m enraged,” Sokkar said. “There’s no peace even in death. It’s just incredibly cruel. There’s no reason for it. It’s just senseless cruelty and depravity, and it’s just a form of mass punishment, even for people who have literally nothing to do with it because they’re dead.”
Sokkar is also saddened by the division among the Lebanese people, notably along religious lines. She would love to see Lebanese people unite in these tragic times, but she doubts it will happen.
“Who cares what anyone does in their homes?” Sokkar said. “We’re being attacked, we’re being killed, our dead are being bombed, people are dying.”
Lara, who asked that her last name not be published for privacy reasons, is a second-generation Lebanese-Canadian who studies at Concordia. She explained how difficult it was to see her parents watch the news all day without being able to do anything but contact everybody they knew to ask if they were okay.
“You can’t just get in your car and check up on them,” she said.
She said that thoughts of what happens in Lebanon come to her in shockwaves.
She expressed her fear that the apathy that was seen for the Palestinian support might happen for Lebanon, taking away some of the international support Lebanon receives. She dreads the effect this may have on the loss of human life.
