Clara, Franco-Lebanese forced to return to Paris

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“I would have liked leave Lebanon when I chose it, not because I was fleeing a war. » On the other end of the phone, the emotion of Claraback in Paris for three days, is palpable. Saturday September 28, 2024, the day after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah killed by an Israeli target in Beirut, our witness decided to leave Lebanon to return to France.

One million displaced

The decision was very difficult to take for this 27-year-old young woman who has been living for two years in the capital of the country of Cedar, where her father is from and where she built her professional life (she works for a Lebanese company), friendly and social.

His daily life was initially marked by inflation and power cuts. Then, from this month of September 2024, by the shadow of an armed conflict with Israel, its southern neighbor.

“Until then, Beirut had been spared. We didn’t really feel that the country was at war, because the strikes were concentrated in the south. We were in a bit of a bubble,” she recalls to Paris news. A “bubble” with, as a soundtrack, however, the noise of Israeli drones and planes which “break the sound barrier”, causing detonations “like explosions”.

On Tuesday September 17, 2024, when hundreds of Hezbollah members’ pagers exploded, the consequences of the war in the Middle East became more concrete, particularly due to the influx of refugees from the Bekaa plains.

According to the Lebanese authorities, a million people (in a country of five) took to the road to try to escape Israeli shelling. “The axes were totally submerged. I started very gradually to see the war infiltrating before our eyesme who saw her from afar,” relates Clara.

“A mini earthquake”

A fragile balance which wavered on Friday September 27, 2024, during a gigantic bombing in Beirut, which therefore killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. “In the space of a few seconds, 80 bombs fell on the southern suburbs of the city, a very densely populated area with many civilians. Beirut is not a big city, it created a mini earthquake,” she remembers.

For the first time, the young woman was afraid: “I had the impression that bombs were going to fall on my head. »

The forty-eight hours that follow, « a sick person »will push her to book a ticket on the first available plane to Paris.

It was impossible to sleep. Every ten minutes, bombs completely lit up the night. There was the noise, the image, the smoke. It’s very strange because you know that, right next door, people are dying by the hundreds.

Faced with the violence of these attacks, Clara has the feeling that this conflict no longer obeys no logic : “The war quickly moved to a higher stage. We were not following the classic rules of engagement. It’s this side completely unpredictable that the clashes took which convinced me to leave. »

“Some go through Jordan or Iraq”

A challenge in itself since only the Middle East Airlines continues to serve the country, with Air France and Transavia having announced the suspension of their flights until October 8, 2024.

“I was afraid that the airport ends up being bombedlike in 2006, she recognizes. I couldn’t see myself waiting for the evacuations by boat that embassies have started to offer. »

After long hours spent updating the website of the national airline, a place became available in a flight to Paris via Cyprus. Stopovers have become compulsory to leave the country. “Some go through Jordan or Iraq,” lists Clara.

Next step: reach Beirut airport, which requires passing through the southern suburbs, an area particularly targeted by Israeli army fire. New increase in stress for the twenty-something: “Our flight was in the middle of the night. This is the worst time, because that is where the strikes are the most violent. »

“There is a feeling that we are the second Gaza”

But the trip went off without a hitch and, after a stopover in Cyprus, Clara landed at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, relieved.

I’m glad to be at my parents’ house and not have to go through that stress, always expecting the worst whenever someone makes a funny face while looking at their phone. But being far away is hard.

A distance that is all the more difficult to live with as its amis, on family and his colleagues are still on site. “I cry a little all the time,” she whispers.

So, to not miss any developments in the situation, she follows the information minute by minute. But after experiencing the bombings and witnessing their disastrous, often fatal consequences, the young woman found media treatment in France very distanced, almost dehumanized and prefers to rely on the Lebanese media.

“We hear about the looming confrontation between Israel and Iran, about Hezbollah… But we don’t say much about civilians, which are nevertheless affected with each strike. All this year, there has been Gaza, that’s all we talked about in Lebanon. There is a feeling that we are the second Gaza. »

The state of mind of the population, faced with the possibility of a new conflict, oscillates between anger and resignation.

There are members of my family for whom this is the fifth or sixth war. The Lebanese feel that they are caught in a spiral of violence that they did not choose at all.

“Leave, but to go where? »

From the apartment in the 20th arrondissement of Paris where she grew up, the young woman measures her luck in having been able to choose between stay or go.

“I have cousins ​​who have American citizenship through their father, but who have never been to the United States. In absolute terms, they could have left, but to where? They don’t have no attachment elsewhere than in Lebanon. »

In France for less than a week, Clara knows that this return is only temporary. “This does not at all signify the end of my experience in Lebanon. My professional and social life is there. I want to go back there to re-anchor myself. There, for now, I just feel torn. I am attached to this country in both happiness and misfortune. Today, it is impossible to live peacefully knowing that one of my two countries is at war. Emotionally, I’m there. »

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