While bombs drop on Lebanon, I grieve: We are safe, but my loved ones are not

May 29, 2026 — 12:00pm

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When the bombs fall, it is the middle of the night in Australia. My phone lights up.

Last night, strikes intensified in the south of Lebanon. I am Assyrian Lebanese. News like this takes me straight back to April 8 and to the shock of what happened that day.

In Lebanon, they call it Black Wednesday. Israel launched more than 100 airstrikes in 10 minutes, the largest coordinated assault since March, hitting Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and the south.

Many of the bombs fell on residential and commercial areas, during rush hour, without warning. At least 357 people were killed. More than 1000 were wounded.

A ceasefire had just been announced. People had allowed themselves, briefly, to hope. They are still waiting.

My grandparents found refuge in Lebanon after escaping violence in Iraq and Turkey. When the civil war broke out in Lebanon in the 1970s, we were forced to........

© The Sydney Morning Herald