As Lebanon marks a grim milestone, Sana Basim, Islamic Relief’s head of programmes in the country, explains why the physical toll of the 3-year escalation only scratches the surface of the true damage being done to the lives of the Lebanese people.

The imagery we often associate with war is that of soldiers, weapons, power, killings, blood and physical injury. But there is another side that we often fail to see.

We fail to see the fear of a parent when an airstrike warning sounds or evacuation orders are issued. We fail to comprehend the uncertainty in the eyes of children who are displaced from their homes and forced to share confined spaces. We fail to see the helplessness of a parent struggling to put food on the table.

We fail to see the helplessness of older people and people with disabilities who cannot access their medicines because resources are scarce. And we fail to see the uncertainty of a pregnant woman forced to travel more than 14 hours to reach a safer place or, in some cases, even having to shelter in a parking lot or by the shore.

Ten-year-old children can recognise the type of drone flying overhead. Families bury their loved ones while wondering who might be next. Many families have stopped asking, “will this ever end?” and begun fearing they’ll never feel safe again.

These wounds may not leave physical scars, but the trauma they create is not easy to heal and can pass from one generation to the next.

In Lebanon, such trauma has become part of everyday life.

Tired of uncertainty

Perhaps one of the most profound consequences of prolonged conflict is that it changes our relationship with uncertainty.

People still want to celebrate, meet friends, enjoy a meal, go to university, fall in love, make plans and live life in the most ordinary and human way. But a loud sound can suddenly interrupt that normality, triggering the fear that an airstrike might be coming. Even moments of happiness are tinged with the awareness that they may not last.

For many young people I’ve spoken to in my work, this uncertainty has begun to shape their lives.

Many reported having difficulty sleeping, concentrating and eating. Some described feeling that their future had been put on hold. Staying home doing nothing, doomscrolling, spending time with friends, going to university or simply dreaming about the future can feel like luxuries they cannot afford when their immediate responsibility is to survive.

Fear and trauma make our brains react differently and develop new mechanisms to cope. Some people become hypervigilant, constantly anticipating the next threat. Some become numb, while others try to deny what’s happening because acknowledging it feels too overwhelming.

Several people told me that they had stopped saving for the future and were instead living day by day. This wasn’t because they didn’t have dreams, but rather they no longer felt certain of a future in which those dreams were possible.

I remember speaking to a colleague who had been displaced with her family since the beginning of the escalation. She told me that one evening at the dinner table, her daughter said:

“We are tired of this uncertainty. If there has to be another escalation, they should do it now. We are tired of this continuous stress, uncertainty and living in fear.”

There is something deeply unsettling about hearing these words from a child, but it shows how everyone here is feeling the effects of this terrible uncertainty.

Another young person I spoke to told me:

“I think the conflict has changed our generation in many ways. It has made us grow up faster and become more aware of how fragile stability and safety can be. Things that we may have once taken for granted, being at home, going to work or university, seeing our families, making plans can suddenly feel like privileges.”

That shows that conflict steals more than homes lives and livelihoods, it also is also robbing a generation of the ordinary assumption that tomorrow will come and that it will be safe enough to live in.

Romanticising resilience

There was a strong sense of hopelessness, anxiety, frustration, grief and moral injury in the stories I heard — the feeling of having witnessed or experienced profound injustice while having little power to change it.

I remember hearing how evacuation orders would sometimes come at 1 or 2 in the morning, leaving people with only minutes to run, often without knowing where they could go. At times, sleeping by the sea was the only refuge they had.

And yet, when we talk about people living through such experiences, we often use one word: resilience.

I despise the way the word resilience is sometimes used to describe Lebanese people. We need to stop romanticising resilience. Because what appears to be resilience can sometimes simply be survival.

When people have lived through multiple crises, they learn not to save too much because there is no guarantee that tomorrow will look like today. They learn to live in the present, to celebrate when they can, to spend time with the people they love, because they do not know what tomorrow will bring.

But there is a danger in praising people endlessly for their resilience. We can begin to celebrate their ability to endure instead of asking why they are being forced to endure so much in the first place.

What safety means

When we talk about psychological trauma during a protracted crisis, we often focus on what people have lost. But safety is much more than the absence of violence. It is the environment in which a generation can imagine tomorrow.

What remains is the instinct to survive, the desire to protect the people we love, and the determination to find moments of normality in the middle of uncertainty.

But survival should not be mistaken for living.

A young person should be able to think about university without wondering whether they will have to abandon their studies. A family should be able to make plans without calculating how quickly they can leave in case of danger. A child should be able to hear a loud sound without instinctively wondering whether it’s an airstrike.

Safety is not simply the absence of war. It is the freedom to imagine a future.

Conflict not only causes destruction in the immediate term — it can teach an entire generation to stop imagining for tomorrow. The deepest wound may be the feeling that their lives, dreams and futures no longer matter.

Yet, beneath all the fear, grief and uncertainty something profoundly human remains: the desire not merely to survive, but to live; to dream, to create, to contribute, to make a difference, and simply to have the right to live an ordinary, contented life.

Perhaps that is what safety ultimately means: the freedom to believe that your life matters, that tomorrow belongs to you, and that you are allowed to imagine it.

Islamic Relief is supporting vulnerable communities in Lebanon through this crisis and will continue to stand with them. Please help us to continue this vital work. Donate to our Lebanon Emergency Appeal today.