Tripoli, Lebanon – When the humanitarian pause began in Gaza, Fatmeh Abu Swareh had not heard from her daughter Wafaa for almost two weeks.
“I don’t sleep. I sit here at 3 a.m. and I cry. I cry all night… all day,” she said a few days before the break in her living room in Beddawi, a camp of Palestinian refugees northeast of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city.
She feared the worst for her daughter and four grandchildren. Once the break was in place, Wafaa finally managed to contact her mother, but things remained difficult.
“My daughter has nothing to eat or anything to drink,” she said. “Even with the truce, they are afraid of (Israeli) planes.”
More than 15,000 people have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, including at least 6,000 children. The Israeli assault was apparently in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and captured more than 200.
The Palestinian death toll is certainly more than 15,000 as there are likely thousands still missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Daily search for new “martyrs”
Some 210,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, most still in refugee camps created for their ancestors who arrived during the Nakba in 1948, fleeing violent Zionist gangs.
Beddawi has around 20,000 residents, all fascinated by the news coming out of Gaza since October 7.
The news had a profound effect on everyone, with a proliferation of physical and emotional signs of stress. It also boosted national pride, with a sharp increase in sales of Palestinian flags and keffiyehs.
Everyone suffers, but especially those who have family in Gaza. Entering a clothing store to get away from the noisy street, Ossama Najjar, 47, stood with his back to the tantalizingly piled jeans.
He’s not interested. He has lost count of his family members who have disappeared in Gaza, he said.
“Every day I check online the lists of the Ministry of Health containing the names of people from the Najjar family who were martyred,” he said. Among the dead were a cousin and an uncle.
Mustafa Abu Harb often worries about his own uncle and cousin in Gaza. Fatah’s head of northern Lebanon, clean-shaven, sits in his office with framed photos of Yasser Arafat and his successor as Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, on his shoulders.
“I’m talking to you here but my heart is here with my uncle and my cousin,” he says from behind his desk, slouching slightly in his crisp blue shirt and gray blazer.
“They are killing future generations of Palestine,” he said, holding back tears.
Ahmad Hasan Alaaraj, a Fatah member and also a bureau member, has lost six members of his family in Gaza since October 7.
He was overcome with emotion several times as Abu Harb spoke and could only add: “Most people here have someone (in Gaza). »
Generational community pain, solidarity
On a normal day, Najjar works in aluminum. But since October 7, “No one is working,” he says animatedly, his forehead covered in sweat despite the sun beginning to set on this cool autumn afternoon.
“All our attention is on Gaza. Everything on Facebook is Gaza.
While many others in Beddawi have lost loved ones, even those without family in Gaza are suffering.
Dr. Ali Wehbe, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent in northern Lebanon, said the constant news of death and destruction in Gaza was having an impact on his patients. From his office at Safad Hospital, he said many patients now suffered from high blood pressure while others reported increased psychological distress.
Wehbe has no family in Gaza, but he has colleagues he studied with abroad who are now there, and he worries about them.
“We were in contact, but then the electricity went out,” he said.
Feelings of helplessness have also manifested themselves in a renewed sense of national solidarity.
In a small bridal shop in the camp, Nadia Mahmoud Moussa stood next to a tapestry in the shape of Palestine, each region embroidered with a pattern representing local traditions.
Moussa showed a turquoise section, decorated with flowers and small pink, gray, blue and orange pastilles. “This is Gaza,” she said.
Before October 7, Moussa sold wedding dresses and hired musical troupes to perform Palestinian traditions like dabkeh, a Levantine folk dance, or zaffeh, a lively procession of singing, drumming and dancing performed at weddings.
Black dresses embroidered with traditional Palestinian tatreez still hang from the shelves of his store, but his main sellers are now keffiyehs and Palestinian flags, as people sought to express solidarity by displaying national symbols.
“We all experience this pain,” she said. “We pray for patience and resilience. From children to the elderly, we are now learning what it means to be martyrs.
Back in Abu Swareh’s living room, she wipes her tears between two painful sentences. Her daughter already had a brush with death at least once, she said, when the house next to hers was hit by an Israeli attack.
“It destroyed the whole house,” Abu Swareh said.
Although her daughter and grandchildren survive the attacks, there is an extreme lack of food and water, leading her daughter and her family to drink salt water.
A ceasefire far from ideal
On Friday, November 24, a humanitarian pause between Israel and Hamas came into effect. As Israel and Hamas exchanged captives and prisoners, the break was extended twice, most recently on Wednesday evening.
Asked if the break had brought any relief, Najjar was dismissive. “Help is supposed to arrive, but there is still no food, no water, no help on the ground,” he said. “And with winter conditions, the situation will only get worse.”
Najjar said the images he has seen in the media are reminiscent of other humanitarian disasters like in Yemen and Somalia.
“I hope that Arab countries, the West and the rest of the world will start to truly support Gaza,” he added. “Right now it’s all talk.”
Returning to Abu Swareh’s residence on Thursday, Fatmeh knew her relief mattered little because fighting could resume at any moment. Furthermore, acts of aggression have not completely stopped, she added. “Today they shot at them from (Israeli) ships at sea.”
Palestinian media reports that Israeli navy boats fired missiles at the Gaza coast.
Nearby was Fatmeh’s son, Mohammad. He sat quietly until his mother encouraged him to speak. He began, but weighed heavily on his words, choosing them carefully.
“This ceasefire makes no sense,” he finally declared. “It’s a ceasefire without a ceasefire.”
On the morning of Friday, December 1, fighting resumed in Gaza.
Additional reporting by Rita Kabalan in Beirut.