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Seventeen years ago, on July 12, 2006, the 33-day war between Israel and Hezbollah broke out. This is Beirut met with Lebanese people living in Paris who witnessed this event, and went 17 years back in time to share their experiences.
“Sometimes, I have memories that come back to me as if it was yesterday. I can still remember the sound of the bombs, the fear, the nights spent on the ground floor with our neighbors to ‘take shelter.'” Nour Lana was only 7 years old on July 12, 2006, when the war broke out in Lebanon. This was the result of a conflict between Hezbollah – backed by Iran – and Israel.
The initial cause was a series of rocket attacks by Hezbollah on the Israeli border, but it was mostly due to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by the pro-Iranian formation. The duration of the conflict lends it its name: the 33-day war which ended on August 14. It resulted in significant casualties. According to the French Senate website, there were 160 dead on the Israeli side, including 43 civilians. More than 4,200 civilians were injured by rocket attacks.
On the Lebanese side, there were more than 1,100 dead and 3,000 injured, mostly civilians.
A Hoped-for Peaceful Summer
The summer of 2006 started-off smoothly in Lebanon. Baalbek’s International Festival was planned to kick-off on July 12, 2006.
Barely a few days before the conflict erupted, the Lebanese – mainly football fans – were glued to their TV screens, watching the World Cup. They witnessed Cannavaro’s (Italy) crowning victory over Zidane (France).
“I genuinely thought that the first bombs I heard were ‘celebratory gunfire’ or fireworks. At least, that’s what I wanted to believe, and what my parents kept telling me to reassure me,” recounts Nour Lana, who is 21 years old today, and is a corporate lawyer in Paris.
“2006 was shaping up to be a wonderful summer at my parents’ place, with our two little daughters, aged 4 and 6. We enrolled them in a summer camp for the day, and we had some free time for ourselves (…) then the war broke out,” recalls Jean-Paul, who was 39 years old at the time. Today, he is a sales representative for a computer company in Paris.
“We remember how it all began (…), but we didn’t realize that it would escalate into something that serious,” confides Mawaheb, who was 21 years old back then, and a student in Saida. Today, she is 38 years old, and has been working in Paris for over a decade as a Student Support Assistant for students with disabilities (AESH) within the national education system.
How It All Started
Nour Lana explains that, when the situation escalated, she was living near the southern suburbs of Beirut. According to her, things over there were “extremely violent.” She recounts: “I remember some horrific scenes that I furtively watched on television, hiding behind my parents’ couch: destruction, death, blood – I cried incessantly at the thought of having to possibly leave Lebanon and go to France. But witnessing Lebanon being torn apart in such a way and having to come to terms with it at the age of 7 was absolutely horrifying,” reveals the young woman.
“From the first few days, people fleeing southern Lebanon came to Saida. We welcomed five families from Bint Jbeil (…), and we all slept together, on the floor, on sofas, anywhere we could fit in. We lit candles, played cards, and did laundry the old-fashioned way in large plastic or tin tubs,” Mawaheb recalls. She adds that, whenever the fighting stopped, “we would go to Saida to do our shopping.” She recalls: “As soon as we heard the MKs (drones, editor’s note), we would turn everything off. We could see them in the sky.”
“The conflicts started in the South and spread to the southern suburbs of Beirut. My parents live in Baabda, and we could hear the bombings all the way from there,” says Jean-Paul. He recalls that “all foreigners” began to flee, and countries evacuated their citizens. “At first, we got in touch with the French embassy. But soon after, it became overwhelmed.”
To Leave or not to Leave?
Jean-Paul and his family started making arrangements to leave the country as quickly as possible. “We kept calling the French embassy, but the answer was always the same: ‘we’ll call you back,'” he recounts. He decided to leave Baabda and stay at a friend’s place in Ashrafieh (a region of Beirut). “Despite the fact that the western neighborhoods of Beirut were overcome with chaos, we felt somehow more secure. And we thought, ‘just in case, we should be closer to the French embassy to be evacuated faster,'” he adds. He explains that he also reached out to the Danish embassy, as his wife is Danish, to try to leave the country. But to no avail.
Ultimately, Jean-Paul and his family ended up leaving a few days later with the Italians. “We headed to the Italian embassy, close to Baabda, so we were back to square one,” as he recalls. Once at the embassy, they waited several hours for a bus which took them to the port of Beirut, where a ship was awaiting them. According to Jean-Paul, the boat was most likely a destroyer and its name was “Luigi Durand de la Penne.” The ship set off at full speed and headed towards Cyprus.
“Once in Cyprus we took a shuttle to the airport and flew off to Rome.” When they reached the Italian capital, Jean-Paul explains that the Italians had taken note of his wife’s Danish nationality and informed the Danish consulate in Rome. The latter “sent two people to meet us at Rome’s airport, waving small Danish flags. My wife, who was in tears, told them that she lived in Paris and needed to go there. They took good care of us and helped us find a flight to Paris, and we arrived home in the evening.”
On the other hand, Mawaheb said that she didn’t think about leaving the country. “I was studying at Saint Joseph University in Saida. I had a year and a half left to finish my studies, and we couldn’t leave our parents alone.” She also disclosed that she and her family remained close to the families they had sheltered during the war.
The same applies to Nour Lana who chose to stay in Lebanon with her family. First, she went to Tripoli in the north, and then to Ghazir in Kesrouwan where, according to her, it had been calm for some time. “I felt like there was nothing going on anymore, except on TV. In my young girl’s imagination, things seemed to have gotten back to normal.” The period of calm lasted until August 4 when the highway near the Casino du Liban was bombed. “We were staying just 100 meters away, and we almost died that day. I remember the deafening blast of the bomb (…), my mother’s screams, our nanny’s lividness, and my father’s panic as he didn’t know how to react. In fact, I thought that we were all dead, and what I was experiencing was an image of hell.”
Nour Lana says that she and her family ended up leaving for a village near Kfour. “Over there, the remainder of summer was peaceful and serene,” she remembers.
