Israel intensified its operations in Lebanon on Wednesday. On site Reina, 46, talks about her daily life.
Reina lives north of Beirut “in a Christian area that is still secure where life is almost normal,” she explains. Seven years ago, she returned to live in her city after a career in international law.
Now a law professor at the university, she is first and foremost worried about her students: “The faculty has closed and three days of mourning have been decreed by the State. We cannot even do online courses Many of my students live in the South Today, I receive messages from them every day telling me that they have been displaced, that their homes have been destroyed and that they no longer have computers. They’re in their fourth year and they’re supposed to graduate this year. I don’t know how it’s going to go for them.”
As for her, all her friends from abroad call her to encourage her to leave and offer to welcome her, “but I cannot physically or morally manage to leave my country and my family. It is inconceivable for me. The Lebanese need each other. I have to stay here if only to donate blood if necessary,” she said.
But how does she live on a daily basis since her country has been under fire from bombs?
I’m heartbroken
“I had lunch at noon with a friend but we only talked about the war. When I work, I have a lot of trouble concentrating. In the evening, we try to meet at each other’s houses because the restaurants are almost all closed At night, I don’t sleep because even though I live in a fairly safe place, I hear the bombardments which are incessant. A few hours ago, we all shook because we heard. the bombings on the southern suburbs of Beirut I try to live in denial as much as possible.”
Reina, who was injured and lost loved ones during the explosion at the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020, confides today that she is “totally heartbroken. There is no longer a piece of my heart that can break . Today what I feel is a big stone on my lungs and I can’t breathe.” Last Friday, when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed, she was very scared: “I live 7 minutes from the place. I thought the windows of my apartment were going to be blown out. was scary, very scary.” And to conclude: “We are fed up with all these wars that we did not ask for. We don’t want them anymore.”
