In Lebanon I eat lunch and listen for the thrum of planes, the blasts of bombs

Irish Times

12-05-2025

It was
Easter
Sunday and I was in a friend's village in southern
Lebanon
, at an outdoor table under the shade of a tree. We were finishing a huge lunch when familiar booms sounded in the distance: air strikes, about six in total. Only afterwards came the thrum of
Israeli
war planes, flying low overhead. We waited to see if there would be more.
Earlier that day, neighbours had gathered around the village's church, taking turns to ring its historic bells. The mood was light and jovial. In Lebanon, people have learned the sounds of war through necessity: the rumble of war planes, the buzz of drones, the whoosh of missiles and blast of bombs. Yet I still don't think I've grown used to the contrast between joy and sudden violence, and the deep disquiet that accompanies that.
An hour or two after the strikes, we went to a basketball court, where locals gathered to play football or chat. This region is green, with rolling hills. In the distance, we spotted rising white smoke from one of the sites that had been struck.
Israeli forces later said they had 'eliminated' a
Hizbullah
member who smuggled weapons and money. Local media
reported
that an Israeli drone strike had hit a civilian vehicle near the town of Kaouthariyet El Saiyad, killing two people and injuring two others, while another strike on a home in Houla town had killed one.
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Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hizbullah came into force last November, Israel has carried out more than 2,700 air violations in Lebanon using planes or unmanned aerial vehicles and almost 70 air and drone attacks, a
Unifil
spokeswoman says.
More than 750 'trajectories' have also been detected from Israel into Lebanon. There have been 19 violations on the Lebanese side, according to Unifil data, all 'trajectories detected from south to north', aside from 'legacy violations' of weapons and ammunition left behind after the ceasefire came into force (Hizbullah was required to move its fighters north of the Litani river, while Israel was required to completely withdraw from Lebanon, though its forces remain in five 'strategic' points).
Israel has argued that it is acting to enforce the ceasefire. The UN says at least
71 civilians
have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire came into force.
Not every air strike comes with a warning, but one arrived in the late afternoon a week after Easter, on Sunday, April 27th. I was at home in Beirut when I got the alert for a neighbourhood called Hadath, posted by Avichay Adraee, the Israeli forces Arab-language spokesman, on the social media platform X.
'Not only did the terrorist Hizbullah choose to store precision missiles in the heart of the civilian population in Beirut's southern suburbs, but it continues to put the population ... at risk,' Adraee wrote. He included a map, locating the building to be targeted between two schools.
For residents of greater Beirut, the warning meant a return to the old war routine: share the alert in messaging apps; use Google Maps to check how far away it is (in my case, it was relatively far: just more than 5km). Beirut's southern suburbs came alive with the sounds of people shooting in the air as a warning. Multiple Israeli hits came in the next 80 minutes.
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Syria's largely secular Druze community drawn into sectarian conflict
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When I was back in Ireland for two weeks in March, someone asked me how I feel about X now, and whether I would consider leaving it given its leadership changes, as so many others are doing. It felt strange to explain that I live in a country where we use the platform to find out about incoming air strikes.
The following day, I left Beirut and drove to Damascus – partially hoping for a break from the buzzing of Israeli drones. Yet in
Syria
, too, I have been constantly reminded of Israel through noise alone: drones, war planes and an air strike audible from where I stay: separate from the one that landed
close to the presidential palace in Damascus
early on May 2nd.
Israeli forces say they are acting
to protect Syria's Druze
minority community. This is despite many Druze saying they do not want Israeli intervention, widely perceived here as an attempt to land grab and destabilise Syria's fragile post-regime state-building efforts.
The sound of Israeli military action can feel inescapable in capital cities more than 100km apart. It acts as a regular reminder, in both countries, of the heavily armed neighbour on their border.
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