By Anas Al Tayyan | Staff Writer
The recent war on Gaza resulted in the ethnic cleaning of at least 50,000 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians. The destruction of two thirds of the city’s infrastructure has shocked the world on the cruelty at the hands of the Israeli occupation. In addition to the mass destruction and casualties, supplies and border crossings were cut off to further torture the people of Gaza with hunger.
After seeing the horrendous news on TV and watching the numerous videos of burnt corpses and limbless children, many students in Lebanon, filled with rage and disgust, felt it was their duty to do something. Throughout Lebanon, various protests across universities were held in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Moreover, many resorted to boycotting companies that supported Israel. Pepsi, for example, was replaced with Kinza, and foreign companies were replaced with local ones. There was also a noticeable increase in the number of students wearing the Keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian garment symbolic of Palestinian heritage and identity. Also, many university clubs and societies launched fundraising campaigns to donate to Gaza.
Gaza, however, would not be the only one to suffer from Israel’s terror. In October of 2024, Israel would begin its invasion of Lebanon, in addition to its various airstrikes on South Lebanon, Beirut, and Dahiye Al Jonoubia (Dahiye), the southern suburbs of Beirut. The war on Lebanon resulted in the displacement of over a million Lebanese who fled their homes to avoid being killed by Israeli airstrikes. Schools and universities were closed for two weeks before online teaching was implemented. This fiasco would naturally affect
thousands of students across Lebanon, especially students in Dahiye, Beirut, the South, and the Bekaa Valley. The negative implications of the war and its impact are both psychological and physical.
To understand exactly how students were affected, interviews were conducted with students from multiple universities in Lebanon. To protect the privacy of these students, their identity remains anonymous. While those students cannot be considered a proper sample size of the students of Lebanon, they still provide valuable insights into how their academic and personal lives were affected by the war.
The war first started as a psychological battle with the main belligerent being the Israeli MK drone with its buzzing sound that filled Beirut for hours – day and night. Another tactic that was used was the breaking of the sound barrier, which resulted in a loud explosive noise that could be heard across all of Beirut and even other parts of Lebanon. When asked about the biggest challenges faced in continuing their education, one of the students who was interviewed answered that it was the noise. Whether from the MK, the breaking of the sound barrier, or the sound of airstrikes, noise was always a factor that affected the students’ educational and psychological state.
However, the noise wasn’t the only factor impacting students. Over a million people had to relocate from their homes. This caused many problems, as many students didn’t have a second home and couldn’t afford to rent. Many had to seek refuge in schools, which came with its own set of problems such as not having the resources to clean their clothes, having to share a room with another family, and not having a reliable internet connection.
The latter is the biggest problem that students faced while continuing their education during the war, due to the fact that most schools in Beirut and other universities switched to online learning. The internet connection was very slow in Lebanon, which resulted in students either not understanding online classes in real time due to lagging or being unable to access recordings of the sessions.
One of the students I interviewed told me about how he had to relocate to a village near Sidon after evacuating his home in Dahiye. Due to the very slow internet, he had to take a bus very early in the morning to head to his university in Beirut where he could access reliable internet. This two-way journey would take two to three hours of his day on a near daily basis. Moreover, even with a reliable internet connection, many students felt that they couldn’t focus due to the nature of online learning. One student even considered pausing his education until the war ended.
With all these factors in mind, students’ grades were bound to deteriorate. Nearly all students interviewed reported that they had scored a lower grade than usual in at least one subject. One student commented that the struggle goes beyond grades. He stated that the constant news affected his mental state and caused overthinking and distracted thoughts,
resulting in his inability to dive deeper into the material that he was studying as a master’s student.
With this adversity, many students tried to find ways to help them cope with the war. One way was attending group counseling sessions. These sessions mainly provided guidance to students to help them deal with stress, grief, loss, and loss of focus. Moreover, two of the students informed me that helping refugees in schools also helped them cope with the war. It provided them with a chance to socialize and meet new people. One student even shared that when he saw the state of the refugees, he felt that his condition was nothing compared to what they had passed through.
The instability students passed through during this war was an experience not so different than the volatility their parents experienced in the 70s and 80s. At the peak of Lebanon’s instability in both the current and former eras, positions on a future livelihood in Lebanon appear to be split in two perspectives. On one hand, there is hope and faith for a better Lebanon. On the other hand, there is a feeling that this country is set to stay the same in its instable, corrupt, and hectic nature.
As we watch the current events unfold in real time in Lebanon despite the ceasefire, students are still dealing with the physical and psychological impacts of the war. As reconstruction and rebuilding are upcoming goals, student well-being, safety, and post-war healing initiatives are important topics to keep in mind on the road to Lebanon’s recovery.
For now, this war on Lebanon has mostly ended, and people are going back to rebuild their homes. However, Gaza is still being targeted on a daily basis by Israel and its army. Never has there been such a case in human history where so much terror and injustice were seen in front of people’s eyes, yet nothing was done by those who had the responsibility to stand up for humanity. We hope that Gaza gets relieved from the constant terror and nightmare that it is living in, and that everyone, in Lebanon and outside, affected by the trauma of war, heals and receives the support needed to move forward.