Mohammed R. Mhawish
+972 Magazine / September 29, 2024
The people of Lebanon know that our struggles are intertwined; that the bombs killing their children are the same ones killing ours in Gaza.
As I write this, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than 700 people over the past week, including longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The bombs continue to rain down relentlessly, flattening entire neighbourhoods and displacing more than 1 million people from their homes.
I am not in Lebanon, but I can picture the scene vividly. The air is thick with dust, and the deafening roar of explosions is only drowned out by the never-ending wail of sirens. The streets are full of people running for their lives, but there’s nowhere safe to go. Ambulances, overwhelmed and unable to reach the wounded, are helpless as the shelling tears neighbourhoods apart. Civil Defense teams scramble to rescue survivors, but the sheer intensity of the bombardment renders their efforts futile.
I can picture this because the scenes unfolding today in Lebanon are heartbreakingly familiar to me as a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. They echo what my hometown has lived through for generations, including the last year of Israeli genocide. I know the terror that grips those streets. I know what it’s like to wake up to the sound of bombs, to scramble for safety with nowhere to go, to hold your child close and wonder if you’ll live to see tomorrow.
But amid the devastation, something extraordinary has attracted my attention. Even as they flee for their lives and bury their dead, people in Lebanon are still expressing unwavering solidarity with Palestine. They speak of Gaza, amplifying the voices of those enduring the same terror across the border, and declaring that their bond is stronger than the fear that is gripping them under Israeli bombardment.
Despite the bombs, the pain of displacement, and the pervasive threat of death, they remain unshaken in their calls to end the war in Gaza. This is a solidarity beyond words — a unity forged in blood and shared suffering.
A Lebanese friend of mine, who had just escaped with her two children after a missile obliterated their home, told me: “We are with you. We will always be with you. No matter what they do to us, our hearts are in Gaza.” Her voice cracked with exhaustion and grief, but there was also a defiant, unwavering strength.
For the people of Lebanon, Gaza is not a distant cause; it is a mirror of their own suffering. They understand too well the feeling of being abandoned by the world, the endless waiting for help that never comes. They know the pain of watching their children grow up under the shadow of war, of raising a family in the ruins of what once was. And even now, with bombs exploding around them, they stand with us, just as they always have.
In the chaos, I received more messages from friends there. They spoke of terror and helplessness, of watching their homes collapse and their neighbours disappear under the rubble. “There’s nowhere left to run,” one wrote to me, his words heavy with despair. “But we will not be silent. We are with Gaza as much as we are with our own country. We are with you.”
I heard from another friend, a father of three, who spoke to me through broken breaths, his voice shaking as he described the panic. “We’ve been running all morning. We tried to get to a shelter, but it was already full. Now we’re hiding in the basement of a destroyed building, but I don’t know how long we can stay here. The bombs are too close.” His children, he told me, were crying, asking if they would die today.
It’s an unbearable scene, one no parent should ever witness. And yet, their voices have only grown louder in their support for my people. On social media and in the streets, they are shouting for Palestine, for Gaza. They know, just as we do, that our struggles are intertwined, that the bombs killing their children are the same ones killing ours.
What Lebanon is experiencing is more than just another day of aggression; it is a continuation of the story we’ve been living for decades as Palestinians and Lebanese. It’s a shared narrative of displacement, of families torn apart, of the endless fight for survival.
The Lebanese people are speaking to the world in the same language we’ve long spoken — one of loss, resistance, and the unbreakable will for freedom. They have repeatedly waved our flags alongside theirs, and chanted our names in their protests. And today, as their own world falls apart, they are still waving those flags. Still chanting our names.
Like we Gazans, the people of southern Lebanon — and all of Lebanon — are closer to the grave than they are to freedom. And yet, even in their darkest hour, they have not turned their backs on us. The faces I see today are not so different from the ones I saw in Gaza throughout the past year: mothers clutching their children, fathers trying to shield their families from the unspeakable, children caught between confusion and terror.
We are living the same nightmare, just in different cities. But what gives me hope — what always gives me hope — is the way our people rise, even in the face of such devastation. We rise not just for ourselves, but for each other. And that is what I see today in Lebanon: people who, despite the destruction, the bombs, and the unimaginable pain, still refuse to turn their back to Palestine, and are still raising their voices for Gaza.
And that is why we cannot afford to be silent. The people of Lebanon need us, just as we have always needed them. They need our voices, our solidarity, and our strength. Because in this fight for survival, we are not just two nations enduring separate wars. We are one people, united by the same pain, the same hope, and the same determination to live.
Mohammed R. Mhawish is a Palestinian journalist and writer from Gaza, currently based in Cairo. He is a contributor to the book A Land With A People — Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism (Monthly Review Press Publication, 2021)
