Last year’s autumn term was the most peaceful one we have had at the American University of Beirut in several years.
Having survived Lebanon’s worst forest fires in decades, a short-lived national uprising, the third-worst financial collapse experienced by any nation since the mid-19th century, the most fatal pandemic in a century, 2020’s devastating Beirut Port explosion, and the 2024 Israeli war on Lebanon – all over the course of six painful years – it was indescribable to get through an academic semester so smoothly.
I travelled to the US over the Christmas holidays, optimistic that the Lebanon I would return to could see meaningful progress on financial-sector reform and the sequestration of weapons under the mandate of the state. Shortly after my return, however, the drumbeat of war became ever louder.
Those of us who grew up during the Lebanese Civil War knew the drill. By the morning of March 2, the war started by Israel and the US against Iran drew in Lebanon once Hezbollah fired rockets into Israeli territory. The presence of the US – the planet’s most potent superpower – as a combatant rather than as a plaintiff for a cessation of hostilities, provided an entirely different dimension.
This is a far more devastating war than that of 2024. This is a true regional war, with many Arab countries and some Eastern Mediterranean nations now involved. More than one million people inside Lebanon have been displaced, including 300,000 children. As of April 14, more than 2,100 people have been killed, with almost 7,000 wounded, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Entire families have left their homes with little more than what they could carry, uncertain when, or if, they will return. Although facilities, shelters and schools were rapidly made available by the government, the resources of the impoverished Lebanese state are already badly overstretched.
On the afternoon of April 8, an abrupt and catastrophic escalation – one with no advance warning – took place. Just hours after it was reported that Lebanon had not been included in the ceasefire agreement with Iran, Israeli military launched more than 100 missiles across Lebanon within 10 minutes. According to the most recent figures, these attacks killed more than 360 people and injured more than 1,300 – primarily civilians. The strikes also affected densely populated, hitherto untouched neighbourhoods in Beirut, some landing just a few blocks away from our university campus. Residents throughout the country were left stunned and bereaved. Hospitals were overburdened, issuing calls for physicians, nurses and blood donations.
At the American University of Beirut Medical Centre, the appalling effects were felt immediately. In less than an hour, we received four people who were already deceased and 68 casualties, two of whom died in the Emergency Department. Tragically, many of the injured were children, including a baby who had to be rushed to the paediatric intensive care unit. The Ministry of Public Health said the next day that women, children and people over 65 years of age accounted for at least 110 deaths and 547 wounded.
Already stretched by dealing with mass-casualty events, resources at AUB were further strained. Some urgent but non-emergency and elective surgeries, diagnostic tests, treatments and clinic visits have been delayed or cancelled, replaced by emergent medical treatments for victims of a war the residents of Lebanon never wished for. Our 160-year-old university, the finest by most measures in the region, once more has had to shift into an institution navigating yet another severe crisis.
Life in Beirut and Lebanon has become an anticipatory cauldron. Daily routines, work, school and travel now unfold under a constant calculus of risk. The path forward being unclear, the peoples of the nation where AUB’s roots are so deeply embedded expect their greatest university to step up once more. They expect it to educate and moderate through all possible means, to prevent an interruption not only of academic and career trajectories, but of individual and collective aspirations. Our medical centres and those of our academic and community colleagues are also occupied in healing those who need us. Beyond this, AUB’s Neighbourhood Initiative and Centre for Community Engagement, working with student, faculty, and staff volunteers, have mobilised to support displaced families in Ras Beirut, providing daily meals, distributing essential supplies and creating safe spaces for displaced children.
Lebanon is a small, strikingly beautiful country of about six million people. Despite impressions to the contrary, there are strong ties within and between the various religious, rural and urban communities, who are deeply interknit from living across a mere 10,452 square kilometres. Despite strained resources, many are accepting internally displaced citizens into their homes and neighbourhoods. Since the war began, pouring rain has made living conditions far more dire for those in cars, shelters or, worse still, subsisting on the streets. The sights of tents and personal property being blown in the wind is heartbreaking.
Israeli military incursions into Southern Lebanon, the blowing up of bridges and the razing of many villages has brought forth a terrible sense of déjà vu. Few in this country wish to see any part of it occupied again, by either internal or external actors. Nascent talks this week between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, the first in decades, mark a rare development, though their outcome remains uncertain. A ceasefire brokered by the US, that began after midnight on Thursday, provides a tentative pause in hostilities, offering a narrow hope for its continuation and potential extension.
Of some consolation to those of us at AUB at least, is that unlike the Covid-19 pandemic, the days following the Beirut Port explosion or the last iteration of war in the fall of 2024 – all of which so recently befell this beleaguered country – most of our students are attending to their studies, while patients with life-threatening diseases are visiting our medical centres.
We have collectively learned from previous crises to focus on what we need to do and are better at carrying out our duties than in days gone by. The lessons have taken. We are currently focused on getting to what we hope will be a peaceful graduation in early June. At the time of writing, we have 13 remaining days of instruction to complete the semester, before our learning assessment tools, to a significant degree examination-based, can yield data for our educators, transcripts and degrees for our students. Importantly, many of our graduating students have already secured jobs and places in graduate programmes, both in Lebanon and abroad, opportunities that depend on their ability to complete this academic year on time.
Across our university community, there is a strong sense of determination to endure, to resist and persist in our mission. Yet again, a people who have learnt to live with disaster and uncertainty look to AUB for hope, for excellence and for certainty amid the uncertain. No matter the challenges, the limited resources and dangers, we will never let them down.
