Lebanese American students at USC are feeling the strain of Israel’s recent air attacks on southern Lebanon from thousands of miles away.
“There is concern for our families, there is concern for the looming threat of a large scale war, said Giovanni Zaarour, a senior studying computer science and a board representative for the Lebanese Club at USC. “Just yesterday, we ... lost 550 people, including over 50 children ... And so seeing that just really, really worries us.”
Zaarour said most of his extended family is in Lebanon; he and other USC students with family there are worried about their safety.
“It was extremely challenging for a lot of us to continue on with our days without wanting to cry or worry about our family back home,” he said. “There is a lot of mental anguish and distress among the Lebanese community and just to like go about our daily lives knowing what’s going on back home.”
This hits close to home. That’s because I have family living in Lebanon, too. I reached out to my cousin who lives in Bourj Hammoud located North-East of Beirut, the capitol of Lebanon. It was difficult getting a hold of him. But when I did, he told me he only wanted to be identified by his initials, S.A., because he feels unsafe.
I jumped on a call with him immediately.
“Hello can you hear me?” I kept on repeating.
Once we connected, my cousin candidly shared with me what he has seen and heard.
“I didn’t hear any air strikes, but I saw the planes,” he said. “They were quite low, of course I heard them breaking the sound barrier, and I saw them throwing, I think it was flares when they were flying.”
He told me how his mom shared devastating news with him: “My mom just recently told me that one of her students passed away, I think in Bekka as well.”
I asked my cousin if he feels under direct threat.
“I’m not directly affected so far by the air strikes, but were all on panic mode,” he said. “You know, were all were all stressed and anxious.”
He said there is a lot of uncertainty, too: “The situation. It’s really, really confusing. There are a lot of information coming from from left and right, and you don’t know what to believe and what to take seriously and what not to so it’s really confusing.”
It was hard to hang up the phone. I couldn’t hold back my emotions and broke down towards the end of the call, reminding him that I’m there for him.
I asked Giovanni Zaarour, with the USC Lebanese club, how those of us with family in Lebanon can support one another here on campus.
“As a community right now, we’re just trying to foster humanitarian efforts and share those efforts out with the public,” he said, “and also our own community.”