Opinion | In Lebanon, We Took Pride in Our Resilience. Not Anymore.

The windows of my apartment in Beirut rattled with the force of the blasts. I heard screams, I heard terror, I heard death. I haven’t properly slept for weeks now. How can anyone sleep, or even rest, with explosions around us and dread within?

For more than three weeks now, Israel has been bombing Beirut and has sent troops into the south in its pursuit of Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese political and paramilitary force that is Israel’s sworn enemy. More than 2,300 people have been killed and more than 10,000 wounded over the past year — most in the past few weeks — and some one million people displaced. The recent attacks have killed at least 127 children.

Nowhere is safe; no one is secure. This is not life. It is an excruciating wait for the possibility of death. But in truth, living in Lebanon for the past 50 years has been a lot like waiting for the next disaster.

First it was the civil war that stretched from 1975 to 1990, killing 150,000 people and shattering the country. Then came a series of assassinations over the years, mainly of anti-Hezbollah politicians, journalists and activists; the devastating 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah; and one of modern history’s worst economic collapses in 2019. The next year a catastrophic explosion at the port in Beirut brought another superlative: one of the most devastating nonnuclear blasts in history, ravaging much of the city. Lebanon was thrust deeper into poverty, homelessness, unemployment, insecurity and deprivation of medicine, power and water supplies. Generators and water deliveries have become a basic way of life.

I’ve witnessed so many wars and tragedies here that I sometimes feel 100 years old.

My father, Atallah, was from a small village in southern Lebanon on the border with Israel — a beautiful place called Yaroun. We buried him there last year, granting his last wish before he died. This month his hometown was leveled. Do you know how many times Yaroun has been shattered and rebuilt from the ashes? It’s the phoenix metaphor that has been applied to the Lebanese people throughout recent history. We are told we are resilient. We are admired for bouncing back, for making do, for finding a way. Ah, those plucky Lebanese!

We, too, used to value this quality in ourselves, whether we bragged about it openly or secretly inside. “We snap right back to our feet,” we used to tell ourselves and others. “Look at us rebounding.” But more and more, I hear people speak of Lebanese resilience with disdain, even anger. We don’t want to be resilient; we just want to live, and to live with a sense of a future — not this “carpe diem” existence which fuels our tendency to ignore our problems and remain oblivious of the past.

It’s as if the Lebanese people are destined for eternal collateral damage. Pointing fingers at foreign powers is easy, and justified: Blame for Lebanon’s decades-long problems can be placed on Israel, Iran and Syria and the failure of France, Lebanon’s former colonial patron, in particular and Europe in general to intervene. Blame can also be placed on the political Machiavellianism of the United States and its blind support for Israel, including the Biden administration’s decision to step aside from meaningful efforts to stop Israel’s campaign. They have all contributed to this infernal vicious circle we’ve been trapped in for decades now.

The latest conflict is one of many tragedies brought on us by Israel, with its right-wing extremism, disproportionate violence, greedy expansionism and ruthless wars. Hezbollah has also brought devastation, with its ultrareligious vision, fealty to Iran and hostage-holding of the Lebanese state for many years now. As Israel and Iran threaten each other, we die.

But it is time to admit that we, the Lebanese people, share responsibility. We fail to learn our lessons time after time. A majority keeps supporting the corrupt warlords who control the people by appealing to sectarian instincts and by using the lure of clientelism, replacing the state institutions that they themselves have contributed to undermining. It is time we pull those heads of ours out of the sand of resilience and work together to build a real democratic, secular state.

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes when late last month our essentially permanent speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, leader of the Shiite Amal Movement and Hezbollah ally, blamed the state for its “absence” and for failing to keep up with the needs of people who have been displaced by the recent attacks. For 32 years now, he has been a key part of that state, a symbol of the political and economic corruption eating away at it.

I can’t accept that this hellish destruction is the only solution to Hezbollah’s grip on the country. I reject the idea that there is no political alternative to this relentless massacre. Justice should never involve killing innocents, and vengeance can never bring peace. Such truths seem obvious, yet nobody believes them.

Consider the terrified, weak, powerless people in my country, who are now without a roof, security or resources. Think about the children sleeping on the streets because their homes have been bombed, or might be. See the thousands who now live in parking lots and public squares. They have left everything behind and ventured into the unknown. The suffering of these innocent people breaks my heart, as has the suffering of the innocent people of Gaza for the past year, as has the suffering of the innocent people of Palestine for decades.

The world’s criminality and inhumanity as these concurrent tragedies unfold leave me deeply shocked. At the highest governing levels, there’s no urgency to remedy this situation — just empty promises and condemnations to appease guilty consciences. I don’t know if we can afford hope. The darkness feels endless. Where can hope come from? Cynicism prevails in global politics. Every moment here feels borrowed or reminds us of life’s fragility. Every breath feels like an act of defiance. Perhaps our only hope is us.

Joumana Haddad is an author and journalist and a former candidate for the Lebanese Parliament.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads.