Between Devastation and Indifference: A Christian Lebanese Reflection

As a Christian Lebanese, I cannot hide my disappointment—my own community has shown a staggering lack of empathy toward those suffering in the south. While Israeli bombs reduce villages, homes, and lives to rubble, many Christians in Beirut continue as if nothing has changed. Restaurants are full, nightlife is booming, and daily routines remain untouched, as though the war and the suffering of our southern neighbors were happening in another country altogether. This indifference is not just painful to witness—it is shameful.

Since October 2023, when the Gaza war spilled into Lebanon, southern towns and villages have endured relentless Israeli aggression. Airstrikes have killed civilians, including children, while infrastructure—homes, hospitals, water systems, farmland—has been systematically destroyed. Over 100,000 people have been displaced, forced to leave their homes and seek shelter in Beirut and elsewhere, only to face high rent, rising living costs, and scarce work opportunities. Humanitarian aid, when it comes at all, is inconsistent and uneven.

When I visited Beirut in May, the contrast was impossible to ignore. In the devastated south, the weight of war is visible everywhere: bombed-out houses, displaced families, communities reduced to ruins. Yet, drive a mere two kilometers into certain Christian neighborhoods, and you see life uninterrupted. Cafés buzz, streets glow with nightlife, and conversations rarely touch on the suffering of those just down the road. The indifference is louder than the silence of the bombs.

This moral disconnect cuts deep for me. Faith, especially Christian faith, is supposed to rest on compassion, solidarity, and care for one’s neighbor. But when fellow citizens are bombed, displaced, and stripped of dignity, and the response is indifference, then something has gone terribly wrong. To turn away, to carry on without acknowledgment, is to betray the very values we claim to uphold.

Lebanon cannot afford this kind of selective humanity. Suffering in the south is suffering for the whole nation. If we fail to recognize that, we only deepen divisions and betray our shared identity as Lebanese. I believe my community must reckon with its privilege and indifference and move toward empathy—real empathy—that transcends sectarian lines.

Because the people of the south deserve more than survival. They deserve solidarity.

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by Sami Wakim via street art united states