‘A nightmare’: Lebanese Americans anxious, angry as Israel attacks homeland

Ali Dabaja says Lebanese Americans have been struggling for the past 12 months with “work-life-genocide” balance as tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

But now, with the Israeli military unleashing its firepower on Lebanon over the past week, the community is at a “boiling point”.

Israel’s large-scale bombing campaign in Lebanon has hit close to home for Dabaja, a Detroit-area physician. His cousin, Batoul Dabaja-Saad, was killed along with her husband and three children in an Israeli air strike on their home in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.

“There is disbelief. There is anger, and there is the feeling of loss – tremendous loss,” Dabaja told Al Jazeera.

He is not alone: As the war in Lebanon intensifies, Lebanese Americans say they are feeling anxiety and sorrow for their loved ones back home – and outrage at their own United States government for continuing to arm and support Israel.

“Our minds are always with the people of Palestine and of Lebanon, and now it’s a different phase for us,” Dabaja told Al Jazeera.

“We’ve been yelling and screaming at the top of our lungs. We’ve been engaging politicians. We’ve been engaging our country, engaging people who are running for president. And all of that has kind of fallen on deaf ears. And at this point, it becomes very personal for us.”

Israeli attacks

Israel began bombing villages across southern and eastern Lebanon early on Monday, leaving entire communities in ruins and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.

While the full extent of the damage remains unclear as much of the country’s south has become a no-man’s land, it appears that Israel is engaging in the same extensive destruction that the world has seen it inflict on Gaza.

In village after village, videos and eyewitness accounts convey images of obliterated buildings and rubble-covered roads.

While Israeli officials have said that the military is targeting homes used to store weapons used by Lebanese group Hezbollah to attack Israel, critics say the breadth of the bombardment shows its indiscriminate nature.

More than 620 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in four days, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Like the more than 41,500 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza since October of last year, the victims in Lebanon are not just numbers, Dabaja said: Each person had stories, dreams and social connections that go well beyond the country’s borders.

He described his cousin Batoul, who worked two jobs to help support her family, as someone who was charismatic, well-educated, sociable and diligent.

“She had a light that was unlike other people. That light was extinguished, as was the light of so many others who lost their lives in this tragic and indiscriminate bombing,” Dabaja said.

While he grieves for his cousin, Dabaja also said he fears for the safety of other relatives who have been displaced.

‘It’s like being in a nightmare’

Many Lebanese Americans woke up on Monday to messages and calls from family members looking for refuge from Israel’s bombardment.

Suehaila Amen, a community advocate in Michigan who is hosting a Lebanese foreign exchange student, said she received a call from the student’s mother, who was fleeing her village near the southern city of Tyre.

“She was like, ‘My daughter is with you, if something happens to us, please take care of her.’ That’s what I woke up to. I couldn’t understand what was going on,” Amen told Al Jazeera.

She described feeling deep sadness over the killings and widespread destruction, as well as worry for her friends and relatives in Lebanon who have been forced to leave their homes.

“It’s like being in a nightmare and watching these killers continue to have free reign at slaughtering innocent people without any reprimand or care,” Amen said.

Her account was echoed by other Lebanese Americans who have been watching their homeland be decimated from afar.

Samia Hamid, a mother of five from Michigan, said the hurt is being felt across her tight-knit Lebanese American community in the Detroit suburbs of Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, where thousands of residents hail from southern Lebanon.

“Everybody is a nervous wreck. Everybody is on pins and needles. Everybody’s afraid,” she said. “Where are they going to hit next?”

The rubble of destroyed buildings lies at the site of Israeli strikes in Saksakiyeh, southern Lebanon, September 26 [Ali Hankir/Reuters]

Sanaa, a Michigan woman who asked to only be identified by a first name due to a fear of retaliation against her or her family, said she has barely slept since Monday.

She has two brothers currently in Lebanon, and her family had to flee the south of the country for the capital Beirut despite the risk of being bombed on the road, as Israel has targeted several vehicles over the past days, including ambulances.

While Israel has focused most of its air raids on southern and eastern areas of Lebanon, it has been expanding its bombardment to other areas, including places without any Hezbollah political or military presence.

Sanaa said she fears that soon nowhere will be safe and her family will face even greater dangers.

“The bombing is going [on] everywhere. And eventually, they’re going to run out of places to go – the same way it happened in Gaza,” she told Al Jazeera.

US role

One of Sanaa’s siblings in Lebanon is a United States citizen. She said he contacted the US Embassy in Beirut but was told that “they can’t do anything” to help, other than advising him to stay safe.

While the international airport in the Lebanese capital is still operational, most airlines have cancelled their flights in and out of the country, leaving many dual and foreign nationals stranded.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on how the US Embassy in Lebanon is assisting American citizens there.

The Pentagon has announced it is sending additional troops to the Middle East amid the hostilities in Lebanon. However, there have been no publicly announced plans for evacuating American citizens amid the ferocity of Israel’s bombing campaign.

Meanwhile, the US has been pushing for a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon that Washington says would allow for diplomacy to resolve the crisis.

The effort has been openly rejected by Israeli leaders, yet despite that, Washington has maintained its military support for Israel, supplying most of the bombs, jets and drones that have been wreaking havoc on Gaza – and now Lebanon.

Experts have lambasted the administration of US President Joe Biden for refusing to meaningfully pressure Israel against further escalation in Lebanon.

Israel’s army chief said on Wednesday that the military is preparing for a ground invasion of the country. And as the death toll climbed on Thursday, Israel’s Defence Ministry announced it had secured a $8.7bn military aid package from the US administration.

Many Lebanese Americans see Biden and his aides – including Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the Democratic candidate in November’s presidential election – as directly responsible for the carnage in their homeland.

“I am hoping to God that people remember that on Election Day – because all this is happening under the Biden administration, and Harris is part of it,” said Hamid.

‘Same tactics’ as in Gaza

Harris has committed to continuing to send weapons to Israel with no restrictions despite the US ally’s well-documented abuses in Gaza and Lebanon, rebuffing calls from progressives for an arms embargo against the country.

Amen, the activist, said the war in Lebanon will further alienate Arab and Muslim voters from the Harris campaign and hurt the Democratic Party’s election chances, particularly in the swing state of Michigan.

According to US Census figures, the US is home to around 700,000 Lebanese Americans, 82,000 of whom live in Michigan.

But community advocates say that the data significantly undercounts Arab Americans because of the absence of a specific “Arab” or “Middle East and North Africa” identifier on the census form.

Amen said Harris will have to deal with the anger of the Lebanese and broader Arab community in Michigan come November.

“Kamala Harris has no soul. She is evil, and she is no better than those she’s protecting and enabling,” Amen said, referring to the Israeli government.

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, whose district includes Dearborn, also slammed the Biden administration this week for its unflinching support for the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid the attacks on Lebanon.

“After facing no red line in Gaza, in an attempt to remain in power, Netanyahu is now expanding his genocidal campaign to Lebanon, using the same tactics the Biden-Harris administration has endorsed,” Tlaib said in a statement.

Banding together

Yet in the face of such widespread disappointment and pain, Lebanese American advocates say their community is coming together and trying to push for change.

Across the US, Lebanese and broader Arab communities are organising protests, fundraising for relief efforts in Lebanon, and calling on politicians to denounce the Israeli offensive.

Mike Ayoub, a realtor in the Detroit area, said many Lebanese Americans are even opening up their homes in Lebanon to shelter displaced people.

“The Lebanese community is hurting badly, but they’re rallying. They’re saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ And I think more than ever, I’m starting to see us [getting] more politically involved,” Ayoub told Al Jazeera.

Dabaja, whose cousin was killed in an Israeli attack, also stressed that Lebanese Americans are not helpless. Instead, the suffering in Lebanon will push them to continue to demand an end to the unconditional US support for Israel, he said.

“There’s still much we can do,” Dabaja said. “Yes, I can’t protect people now, but going forward, we still have … the ability to change things where we are at because we have that privilege.”

Amen echoed that, saying that she is inspired by the strength of her friends and relatives in Lebanon who have not been broken by displacement and grief.

“They’re more resilient than we are. They’re more courageous than we are,” she told Al Jazeera.

“While I’m in panic mode, they say, ‘This is our qadar [fate]. Whatever God wills, we are ready for it.’ Their faith and resilience reinvigorate my own.”