After the influx of 1.5 million refugees from the Syrian civil war, the collapse of its currency, national bankruptcy, hyperinflation, and the Beirut port explosion, assassinations, and constant tit-for-tat cross-border bombardment, the scourge of war is returning to Lebanon
Israel is on the brink of invading southern Lebanon to exterminate Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Muslim group, and its stockpiles of weapons.
A million people have reportedly had to leave their homes. About 1000 civilians have been killed, including more than a hundred children, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
The Israeli army has issued evacuation orders for about 1,470 square kilometres – around 14 per cent of the country – including swathes of southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and parts of the Bekaa Valley.
Air strikes have destroyed bridges over the Litani River, partially cutting off the south from the rest of Lebanon.
The Israelis are responding to missiles and drones launched by Hezbollah into northern Israel. Hezbollah says that it is avenging the death of Shi’ite supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran.
No one knows when Lebanese residents will be able to return home. “Hundreds of thousands of Shi’ite residents of southern Lebanon who have evacuated or are evacuating their homes in southern Lebanon and Beirut will not return to areas south of the Litani line until the safety of northern residents [of Israel] is ensured,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has declared.
Annexation is not completely implausible. An editorial in The Jerusalem Post earlier this month invoked the founder of Israel, David Ben Gurion, to argue that Israel needs a natural defensive border: “Israel must control the territory up to the Litani River and resettle it with Jewish communities.”
Most of the villages in the south are Shi’ite, but several are majority-Christian.
A Maronite priest in the town of Qlayaa, Fr Pierre al-Rahi, defied the evacuation orders, stayed with his people, and was killed by an Israeli tank round while helping parishioners.
Catholic authorities have been dismayed by the sudden surge in violence. Pope Leo XIV called for an immediate ceasefire on 15 March.
“Violence can never lead to the justice, stability and peace for which the people are waiting,” he said, specifically referring to Lebanon.
The Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, sounded despondent. “It pains us profoundly to witness the ongoing war between Hezbollah and Israel, continuing against the will of the loyal Lebanese people and the government,” he said in a homily on 22 March. “There is no mercy or compassion for the displaced – men, women, and children – whose number has reached 1.3 million, nor for the 1,000 killed, nor the nearly 3,000 wounded.
“We express full solidarity with all who remain steadfast in their villages in the South – refusing war and demanding peace.”
Here in Sydney, Maronite Bishop Antoine Charbel Tarabay called for an immediate ceasefire.
Eastern Catholic bishops issue ‘cry for peace and justice’ as global conflicts rage
“Lebanon is the homeland of most Maronites in Australia, and it is heartbreaking to witness the devastation this war is causing, with innocent civilians bearing its heaviest burden.
“We feel that this is the war of others on our land. Decisions of war and peace in Lebanon must rest in the hands of the Government of Lebanon, and no one else,” he told The Catholic Weekly.
“We stand in solidarity with all those displaced by this war, and our appeals and collections during this Season of Lent are directed towards supporting them.”
Lebanon’s foreign minister said on X (formerly Twitter) that he had asked the Holy See “to help preserve the Christian presence in those villages, whose residents have always supported the Lebanese state and its official military institutions, and have never departed from this commitment.”
Despite the invasion, remembering the permanent exile of Palestinian Arabs who fled before an Israeli army in 1948, some Christians are staying put. “We have decided not to leave our homes, because if we leave our villages, we may never return,” Fr Toni Elias, a Maronite priest from the village of Rmeish, told Agenzia Fides.
The Apostolic Nuncio to Lebanon, Archbishop Paolo Borgia, has visited Muslim, Christian, and mixed villages in the south to convey a “message of closeness, peace, and hope” from the Holy Father. He told the media that he saw “deserted areas with not a living soul,” “rubble everywhere,” and “a painful silence broken only by mortar fire.”
The Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, was scathing about the onslaught at a press conference on 18 March. He said that he would like to tell the American and the Israeli governments “to put an end to it as soon as possible, because the real danger is that an escalation is just around the corner. I would say: leave Lebanon alone…”
The Melkite community in Sydney is seeking donations to provide humanitarian relief for thousands of Christian families displaced by the fighting. (For details visit the Melkite Charitable Foundation.)
Melkite Bishop Robert Rabbat told The Catholic Weekly that there are Melkite communities on both sides of the border. As a result, Hezbollah missiles are falling on Melkites in Israel, and Israeli missiles on Melkites in Lebanon.
He urged Australians to demand peace in the Holy Land. “The most important thing is that the Western world should raise their voices and say, enough is enough.”
All of the Christian leaders of Lebanon, both Catholic and Orthodox, want their people to stay, but war is wearing people down. There is a great danger that Lebanon – where Jesus Christ walked – will become dechristianised, the bishop said. And that would be a tragedy for all Christians.
“As humans, we are more inclined to the Jerry Maguire view – show me the money,” he said. “We need what is tangible, and our Lord knew it. He knew that at the end of the day, people need the tangible, and hence he did not leave us without his body and his blood.”
And preserving the Christian character of Lebanon and Israel is “showing me the money.”
“Because if, God forbid, Lebanon becomes dechristianised, what’s going to happen is that one day someone will say, ‘isn’t the Incarnation a myth? Where is this Jesus?”
Faced with the disastrous situation in Lebanon, says Bishop Rabbat, he can only think of the anguished cry of the Psalmist, “how long, O Lord, how long?”
