On July
12, on an otherwise normal summer day, life changed suddenly. Bombs fell
from the sky onto downtown Beirut.
JCU student Fatin Sonbol explains what happened next: We had little
choice but to flee home. And flee fast. (Explosions like this could be seen from Sobol's kitchen window. This photo courtesy of Associated Press).
Summer vacation this year began as it always does. Univesity students started summer classes, the younger students were off. Lebanon was getting ready for all the summer events and tourists streamed into the city. But no one expected what was going to happen on July 12. A series of military skirmishes between the Israeli army and Hizbullah militants, would trigger the most destructive war on Lebanese soil in a generation, certainly the worst thing I experienced in my 10 years living in the capital, Beirut.
In the first few hours, things seemed okay. As we sat on our balcony, family and friends called to check on us. "Oh, it's just fireworks, no worries" my dad would joke.
We are familiar enough with
the sounds of explosions and the implications of air raids. I clearly
remember my sixth-grade teacher advising us to just crack the window a
bit so the glass would not shatter in our faces. We went on with our
lives normally, but we didn't know this time was different. It shocked
us all.
From 10 p.m. until 7 a.m., Israeli planes raided the Dahiya area of Beirut, which was two kilometers away from where I lived. We spent the first four days at home stocking up on food as the stores were running out very quickly. The airport was closed and the roads were all blocked due to continuous air raids.
Finally, we made a decision. It was time to leave.
We didn't pack a thing. We left with the clothes on our backs. Before leaving the house I took a look around and realized I might never see it again, and everything in it, all the furniture, memories, family pictures and videos, also possibly gone forever. We had to leave everything behind. And suddenly I realized what a dying person experiences. Leaving the world with nothing, even the most cherished thing, means nothing at moments like this.
As we drove towards the Lebanese-Syrian border, Lebanese villagers living along the route handed out cherries and wished us a safe trip. "It's a shame you had to leave Lebanon like this," they told us. In my mind I was think "It's a shame I had to leave". I didn't want to leave home.
As we finally reached the
border, a mass of tourists from all over the world were assembled
there. They too were in a hurry to leave the war-torn country. Waiting
for hours, we all hoped things would magically get better. My friends
kept messaging me to inform me what has been bombed. Almost all the
roads around the city of Beirut were officially blocked.
Thank god we left the time we did, I thought. Every single person on the borders simply hoped they would leave before the next wave of attacks. The next step for Israel was to bomb the borders, choking off a suspected weapons supply route between Syria and Hizbullah fighters. We knew we had to leave now. Three hours before our departure from the border, we received grim news: a bombing raid not far away killed 17 people.
Not long aferwards, we departed. After 12 hours, we reached Jordan, a trip which usually takes 4 hours on a normal day.
But we were grateful we got
out alive. I left everything behind; my friends, university, my house,
10-year-old memories. I honestly felt ashamed about having to leave. I
felt that I betrayed Lebanon by leaving it at its moment of need.
This experience has changed my life. One thing is for certain, my priorities are nothing like before.
As for home, it's not the same as it was. And one question keeps drilling into my mind, where will my next home be?
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