April 27, 2026
The Middle East Airlines flight to Beirut forecasts a reality different from the one I anticipate based on what I’ve seen online over the past several weeks: many times, concrete collapsing; once, a mother hugging her son’s shrouded body six feet underground and refusing to let go; every day, paramedics searching for signs of life or for remains, often those of their own colleagues. Instead, the flight-safety video shows people dancing past Lebanon’s landmarks. I watch as an iPhone kerplunks into Jeita’s icy waters and a flight attendant announces that all phones should be turned off. The video is old; I’ve seen it on previous trips. Still, it feels uncanny, watching grown adults exaggerate hand waves like eager children as we head to a country where two thousand people have just been martyred and more than one million internally displaced—about one fifth of the population.
I’ve come to Lebanon with my mother. Our family friend Samar is waiting for us past customs. On the way to the hotel, we pass a billboard thanking Iraq, which has offered aid to assist in Lebanon’s (post-?) war recovery. Other Arab countries helped out after previous wars. shukran qatar, “Thank you, Qatar,” is a refrain so well-known—the billboards were everywhere after the July War, in 2006—that people still repeat it today with a kind of mocking gratitude. Mocking, because the Gulf States fund sectarian propaganda justifying Israeli aggression and then help rebuild the homes whose bombing they condoned.
We drive past several cars packed with people, which is not atypical. New are the mattresses and bags tied to the roofs. The head and shoulders of a small boy poke out of a sunroof and sunlight catches his face; he closes his eyes and smiles, taking it in. We pass a handful of buildings with their facades scooped out, the glass gone. Then here we are at our hotel on Bliss Street, across from the Medical Gate of the American University of Beirut.
I am disappointed to learn that there is no coffee machine in the room. A sheet of printer paper informs us that, given the “current situation,” certain items, like toothpaste and slippers, will not be available. The escalator isn’t running. The power will go out every morning between 3 and 5 AM. My aunt’s empty apartment, where we typically stay when we visit, has been rented out to people who have been displaced.
Every three months, I have a week off from my surgical residency, so I’ve taken this one to see my family and report a couple of stories. On April 16, 2026, Israel and Lebanon signed a ten-day truce. No one I know expected it to last because no one expects Israel to respect a ceasefire, but still I pointed to this flimsy peace as evidence of responsible decision-making when I discussed the prospect of the trip with my parents. My mother, initially opposed, decided to come along. I had some sense of what I wanted to write about — gaps I’d noticed in reporting on the war.
I’m sending WhatsApp messages to coordinate meetings when the athaan starts. It means sunset prayer. I lift my head and see a sky layered with shades of orange and pink. Rise to prayer. Rise to good work. Rise to the best of actions. God is greater. There is no God but God, the muathin says. I’ve missed this way of marking time. On my walk back to the hotel, a car with its windows down plays a prayer I learned as a child: “Amman yujeebul muttarra iitha da‘a.” Is it not He who helps the person in need, if only they ask.
