‘Refugees in their own land’: Lebanese Australians watch on, helpless, as bombs fall back home

As images of airstrikes in southern Lebanon flashed across her TV, Melbourne dentist Sue Hosn felt a pang of panic – and then a heaviness she hadn’t felt in more than four decades.

Israel was bombing the surrounds of Tyre, the historic holiday town on the Mediterranean where Hosn lived in her teenage years. It is still home to her sister and extended family.

Sue Hosn has lost family members to the recent airstrikes in southern Lebanon.Credit: PENNY STEPHENS

“There are bombs everywhere,” Hosn’s sister said from the other end of the telephone line. The buildings next to her family home had been reduced to rubble.

Hosn, who fled Tyre with her family as a teenager during Israel’s 1978 invasion of southern Lebanon, knew there was just one thing to do.

“Pack your stuff and leave,” she told her sister.

The hours that followed were torture for Hosn, as her relatives piled into a car with a handful of belongings and made a mad dash for the mountains in Btekhnay, where Hosn and her husband own two apartments.

Israeli airstrikes hit Tyre, in southern Lebanon, last week.Credit: Getty Images

The journey, which ordinarily takes 2½ hours, turned into a 15-hour ordeal. Thousands of Lebanese clogged local roads in their rush for safety.

“Everybody was leaving, kids were crying,” Hosn said.

“They were scared even to drive and leave the place because Israel was just bombarding everywhere, and the roads were very unsafe.”

Hosn said her family was lucky to have somewhere to go – most people fleeing the conflict are sleeping in schools and tents. She said she recently helped find accommodation for a pregnant woman who had been living in an apartment with 40 others.

Hosn’s family had to flee southern Lebanon for the mountains.Credit: PENNY STEPHENS

Israeli airstrikes have killed several Hezbollah commanders, including the militant group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. The Lebanese Shiite Muslim group has been declared a terrorist organisation by Australia and many other countries, but the strikes have also led to the deaths of about 1000 civilians and forced 1 million people to flee their homes, according to Lebanese authorities.

“It’s actually devastating,” said Hosn, whose cousin – a 53-year-old mother of three – was among those killed while visiting a friend in the initial strikes in Tyre.

The attacks have brought painful memories for Lebanese Australians who have experienced war first-hand.

In 1978, Hosn had to pack her life into a suitcase and flee southern Lebanon – just as her relatives are doing now – for Beirut. Her grandmother decided to leave Tyre after a bomb destroyed a corridor between two rooms they had been using as shelter.

Hosn and husband Wally resettled in Australia in 1987, where they have raised their three sons.

“I never suffered from anxiety, but I just feel anxious all the time. I want to hear what the latest developments are and, at the same time, I feel like I don’t want to see it any more,” Hosn said.

“We’re just so helpless we don’t know what to do, and I don’t know what to do. I can’t sleep properly, and we don’t know how to help.”

Hosn said she did not want to disclose her religion because “all people in Lebanon are united, and regardless of their religion are feeling the consequences of the invasion”.

She said she struggled as she witnessed the desperation of those feeling the brunt of the conflict and wondered how much longer her family would be safe in Btekhnay. Almost all flights out of Beirut have been suspended and airfares for those still operating have ballooned.

“Why do we deserve this? What did we do? It doesn’t seem like there’s going to be any ceasefire, and the bombardment is increasing and increasing. So what’s the aim of all this?” Hosn said.

“At the moment, the Lebanese people are refugees in their own land. It’s really devastating. As a community ourselves we feel really helpless and heartbroken, and actually invisible.

“How many more lives need to be lost before the word ceasefire turns into action?”

With Reuters