Staying Power

Amid ongoing conflict with Israel, a popular website “wars in Lebanon” calculates the percentage of a Lebanese citizen’s life spent in conflict. Per the website, anyone under the age of two has lived at least 75 percent of their life in conflict, while 68 percent of a 50-year-old's life has been at war. 

Lebanon was drawn into the current ‌war with Iran when Iranian-backed Hezbollah launched drones and rockets at Israel on March 1 protesting the assassination of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei. Israel responded with a major offensive in Lebanon, killing at least 2,167 people as of April 15, including more than 350 people killed on April 8, the most intense day of Israeli strikes in years. Israel issued displacement orders covering about 14 percent of Lebanese territory—including more than 150 towns and villages south of the Litani River and Beirut’s southern suburbs—displacing over 1 million people, or one in five residents. Subsequent evacuations ordered residents to move north of the Zahrani River, about 40km (25 miles) north of the Israeli border. 

Despite evacuation orders, tens of thousands of Lebanese remain in the south. For some, socioeconomic constraints limit the ability to evacuate, including the difficulty of securing alternative shelters and high housing and fuel prices. Others cannot leave due to age, or caretaking responsibilities for elderly relatives. Israel’s pressure on non-Shi'ite communities to expel Shi'ite Muslims sheltering among them has also exacerbated sectarian tensions and left many with nowhere to go.  

Still, others are deliberately choosing to remain in the south; a decision rooted in the historical memory of past displacements that became permanent. These communities believe that evacuating villages makes them more vulnerable to destruction and occupation. For them, remaining in the south is a personal decision—it challenges efforts to depopulate border towns and villages for military and strategic aims. “Presence” becomes a form of resistance: a refusal to be moved and erased by an external force.