The resilience of the Lebanese people is legendary. We need look no further than our colleagues to see this inner strength in action.
Bernadette Dabbak, an Information Management Officer with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), speaks about life in Lebanon these days:
Since I joined OCHA in 2018, Lebanon has been hit by one crisis after another - the financial collapse in 2019, COVID-19, the Beirut Port explosion in 2020, the cross-border hostilities that began in October 2023 and escalated sharply in 2024, and now this new escalation.
It feels like we’re “resetting the counter;” in reality, we never recovered from the last round. Many people were not able to return to their villages in the South, and much of the damage and disruption was never fully resolved. So, yes, you develop coping systems.
Professionally, you do the best you can. Personally, you try to manage the anxiety. You avoid certain areas, you follow displacement orders, you stay alert. But even in areas considered “safe,” you’re never really safe.
And then there’s the emotional layer – friends abroad constantly checking on you, family members refusing to leave their homes, especially the elderly, and the guilt of feeling relatively privileged because you’re not in the worst hit areas. It affects you on many levels, even if you try to focus on the half full glass.
More than 1 million people are displaced. People move wherever they can, to safer neighborhoods in regions like the North or Mount Lebanon, some found safety in one of the 660 public schools converted into collective shelters, and others into tents on sidewalks and the Corniche.
Those who manage, rent apartments when landlords don’t question which areas they come from. This extends to some of the residents who worry that hosting displaced families could expose them to risks.
And this makes the social fabric fragile at a time when we need to support one another more than ever.
Then of course there’s the longer-term fear. If villages are destroyed - amid warnings that parts of Lebanon could be turned into “another Khan Younis”, and with plans to establish a buffer zone in the South, many worry that entire areas could become inaccessible, effectively taken out of reach.
People fear they may not be able to return home anytime soon. Where will these families go? How will they afford rent when their livelihoods are in the South? Lebanon remains in a severe financial crisis, with the government having very limited capacity to support people at scale. The uncertainty is overwhelming.
I got engaged a few weeks ago, but it felt hard to share that kind of joy in this context. Colleagues noticed the ring and were so genuinely happy for me, but I hadn’t shared it widely. It feels like the wrong time to celebrate when so many are displaced, when colleagues’ homes are in red zones, when everything feels uncertain.
The level of emotional exhaustion everyone is carrying is high. So, you hold on to what you can in the moment - your health, your family, your friends.
Sometimes it’s also the small things, like going for a walk in the mountains or just watching the sunset over the sea - brief moments that remind you things are still there, still steady, even when everything else feels fragile.
