As Israel’s bombardment of southern Lebanon began on Monday, Sousan Ghecham’s family recognised an area in Tyre being shown on Al Jazeera.
Her parents realised it was somewhere their relatives lived, so they immediately phoned to check on their safety.
“On the phone, they could hear the faint sounds of bombs in the background while they were checking in, which was terrifying,” she said from her home in Sydney.
“People feel helpless and exhausted, we are all sitting around helplessly watching our TVs; watching our country, our villages and homes, bombed into oblivion. And what makes it most devastating is that this isn’t the first time, it’s part of an ongoing, never-ending cycle.”
Ghecham’s family is from Lebanon’s south, where thousands of people continue to flee Israel’s bombing campaign.
Israel said it was conducting “extensive strikes” on the region, which have resulted in more than 560 deaths and 1,835 injuries.
Wednesday’s death toll was the heaviest in a single day in the country since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Israel claimed it was hitting Hezbollah targets across the region, going as far as to strike buildings in Dahieh on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital.
Hezbollah, which is sponsored by Iran, has maintained its campaign of rocket fire into Israel’s north, with the group having pledged to stop firing into Israel if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, warned that “Lebanon cannot become the next Gaza” as she acknowledged on Wednesday for the first time that “civilians are being killed by Israeli strikes”.
Wong repeated a call for Australian citizens to “leave now”, adding she knew there were “so many people in Australia who have relatives, friends and family in Lebanon, and this is obviously a very stressful situation for them”.
She said there were flight cancellations and disruptions and “there is a risk Beirut airport may close for an extended period”.
“Civilians are being killed by Israeli strikes and it is women and children who are paying the highest price. The global community is clear: this destructive cycle must stop. All parties must show restraint and de-escalate,” Wong said.
“Lebanon cannot become the next Gaza.”
But Ghecham said such comments reflected the government’s misunderstanding of the Lebanese-Australian community, particularly those from the south.
“[They] don’t understand that, even if they have an Australian passport, people don’t want to leave. People feel guilty that they have the privilege of being able to get on a plane. They won’t leave other people behind.
“Despite living [in Australia] for as long as we have, we have deep connections to where we come from and, ultimately, we have always wanted to live in our country in a way that was safe and sustainable.
“People don’t come here because they hate their home country. People would go back if it [were] safe and possible to do so.”
Many people living in Lebanon’s south were evacuated in the months after Israel’s war in Gaza began last October, after the 7 October Hamas attacks.
Sydney-based Amani Haydar’s family were part of that evacuation, and she said they had been displaced elsewhere in Lebanon for nearly a year.
The artist and author of The Mother Wound said her family had spent much of the past year waiting to return home, but that uncertainty had only increased as the violence escalated.
“This is a very triggering experience, especially for us. We have experienced Israel’s aggression before, our family has experienced occupation and multiple forms of violence.
“We are all feeling frustrated, anxious and worried.”
Haydar’s grandmother was killed fleeing the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, with many in the community having similar stories of the war.
At the time, Israel mounted a land invasion of Lebanon and bombed much of the country’s infrastructure, including the international airport in Beirut.
It also comes after a long history of Israeli attempts at occupying southern Lebanon.
“We’re familiar with the nature of the violence that’s been used in Gaza over the past year, we are familiar with our lives being seen as disposable,” Haydar said.
“This opens a lot of old wounds that have never been acknowledged and that there has been no accountability for.
“There is a sense that Israel has been emboldened because of what’s happened in Gaza and that now we don’t know what will happen next, because that violence has been so unbridled.”
The Lebanese diaspora in Australia were united in their anger at the escalating violence and incursion, and at the Australian government, according to Gemal Kheir, the secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association.
“The anger is directly aimed at Israel and at the government here for its inaction and its deadly, deafening silence,” he said.
“This has been brewing for some time, and Australia have a moral and legal obligation to do more.”
He said the government had “failed” the Lebanese community in Australia, and described Wong’s urging for people to leave the besieged country as “deplorable”.
“Where are they supposed to go? How are they supposed to get out? I would love for the government to explain how they expect the thousands that are there to get on to commercial flights with the limited capacity at Beirut airport.
“It’s just a political slogan, thrown around to silence us.”
