Displaced in Lebanon, a Christian Couple Struggles to Survive
By Ghinwa Akiki and Hunter Williamson
August 8, 2024
The light breeze passing through the open doors and cracked windows offered little cool from the sweltering, humid summer heat of Beirut. As we sat in the living room, Laudi rushed to the kitchen to grab a cool drink. “I’m going to show you what I’m missing out on by not being in Rmeich,” she said.
Moments later, she returned, carrying a tray with three glasses of homemade mulberry juice. She handed one glass to her husband, Elias, and the other two to us. The drinks were cool and refreshing, but also special. Laudi had made the juice with mulberries from Rmeich, their home village on the southern Lebanese border with Israel.
For the past ten months, the Christian village has been caught in the crossfire of an escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Israeli forces have not directly targeted the village, but attacks against Hezbollah forces in surrounding areas have hit dangerously close. Laudi and Elias lived on the outskirts of Rmeich, making them particularly vulnerable. A few days after fighting began in October, the couple decided to leave. Elias and Laudi had lived through the last full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. The conflict lasted just over a month, leaving more than a thousand Lebanese dead and swathes of southern Lebanon destroyed. Laudi couldn’t bear the idea of living through such a conflict again. They packed their belongings and moved to their apartment in a crowded suburb in eastern Beirut, leaving behind a land that was both their home and their livelihood.
After moving, they welcomed three other families who also fled Rmeich into their apartment. Elias and other men decided to return to the village to protect their homes, worried that fighters from Hezbollah and other armed groups would move into the village in their absence. Twenty people crowded the couple’s small Beirut home. There weren’t enough beds, so people laid blanket sheets on the floor to sleep on. As Laudi wondered how she would host the families, she learned about Claudette, a partner of Thimar’s relief and development ministry, Middle East Revive and Thrive (MERATH). In response to the conflict, MERATH was providing mattresses and other essential items to people who had been displaced. Claudette provided the families with several mattresses, which they were able to spread around the living room. Though still cramped, they at least had more comfortable furnishings to sleep on.
As the families started to look for their own place to live, landlords took advantage of the situation and increased rent prices. Safe areas became unaffordable, and so the families were left with no option but to return to Rmeich. A short while later, Elias came back to Beirut to live with Laudi and their daughters. They have stayed in Beirut since.
Despite the danger, Elias regularly returns to Rmeich to check on their house and land. Their home means a lot to them. After retiring from the Lebanese Armed Forces in 2002 after 25 years of service, Elias built the house and settled down with Laudi. On their land, they grew a host of vegetables and fruits that are characteristic of the Lebanese countryside: prunes, apples, figs, grapes, walnuts, olives, and more. Like much of Rmeich and southern Lebanon, white phosphorus fired by Israeli forces has destroyed their land – and the crops with it. Local experts told him it could take three to four years for the soil to recover.
After serving the mulberry juice, Laudi went back to the kitchen and returned again with a bowl of figs and grapes. These were some of the only fruits not ruined by the white phosphorus, protected by covers that Elias had lain over them. “My nephew likes these fruits, so I protected them,” Elias said.
Before the conflict, Elias and Laudi sold their produce, making additional income that helped them pay for their childrens’ education and cover other expenses. Coupled with Elias’ monthly pension, they lived comfortably and content with what they had. They spent summers in Rmeich, enjoying the cooler weather and fresh air, and moved to Beirut during winters.
When Lebanon’s economic crisis erupted in 2019, their lives began to change as the value of the local currency plummeted and inflation soared. The value of Elias’ pension became virtually worthless, but with their land and produce, they managed to get by. But in 2023, Elias underwent open heart surgery and could no longer work the land as he used to. A few months later, the conflict began.
Without many sources of income left, the family struggles to get by, making them reliant on aid – especially when it comes to medicine. Elias and Laudi both deal with health issues, and the costs of their medicines alone exceed their $230 in monthly income. And then there are other expenses: rent, food, tuition fees for one of their daughters, and a generator subscription, since they, like most other Lebanese, do not receive reliable electricity from the state energy provider. Their home needs repairs too: windows are cracked, furniture is broken, and the wall on their balcony is dangerously unstable. As they speak, Laudi occasionally cries. It pains her to remember the life that they had to the life that they live now.
For the past several months, MERATH has been unable to provide the same level of assistance to them and other displaced people as before due to a shortage of funding. While Elias and Laudi hope to eventually return to Rmeich, the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel continues to escalate. In late July, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that nearly 100,000 people had been displaced from southern Lebanon. It is unclear how many of those people returned to their homes. An Israeli strike on Beirut that killed a top Hezbollah commander and the assassination of Hamas’ political chief in Tehran in late July sparked a new wave of displacement and fear. Claudette, the MERATH partner who has supported Elias and Laudi, told us earlier this week that people she knew who had returned to southern Lebanon and a pro-Hezbollah suburb in Beirut had started to flee again.
As tensions flare again, MERATH hopes to soon increase its support for displaced people. Such support not only helps in meeting physical needs – it also offers partners the chance to meet emotional and spiritual needs as well; to reflect the Gospel in word and deed. “The encouraging thing is that every time (we care for people), we also get the opportunity to pray and sometimes invite them to church,” Claudette said.