Media is filled with reports of the regional situation intensifying but most people in Lebanon have no choice but to adapt to mounting conflict
Hamra Street in Beirut in Lebanon on Wednesday: As of August 20th, Lebanon ’s health ministry said 564 Lebanese people had been killed and 1,848 injured.A sonic boom knocks a painting off the wall. My housemate’s flight out is cancelled once, then twice. We consider what we’ve stockpiled already and what we could use more of We discuss whether my new solar charger will be able to charge laptops if the electricity gets permanently cut off. I am conscious of how lucky we are that we can stockpile.
“The situation” has even affected dating. With GPS signals seemingly jammed by Israel since last October, Lebanese singles complain that dating apps keep matching them with Israelis, claiming they’re mere kilometres away. A Lebanese-American man in his 30s told me he had his account frozen for writing “no Israel” in his bio, in an attempt to filter them out.
For Lebanon itself, has the brink not been passed too? The economic crisis, which began in 2019, saw the currency lose more than 95 per cent of its value, the banks locking depositors out of their savings and poverty rates skyrocketing. The August 2020 Beirut port explosion – one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history – killed 218 people and displaced more than 300,000, but there has never been any justice for it.
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