As fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continues and Lebanon’s economic crisis deepens, many Christians in the land of cedars no longer believe they have a future in the region. Source: OSV News.
Catholic aid workers warn that entire communities risk disappearing from the Middle East.
Fr Jan Zelazny, director of the Polish section of the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need, met Christian communities as he travelled through Lebanon and Syria at the end of May.
Fr Zelazny said local families are struggling not only to survive the crisis, but “to truly live”, feeling trapped in a war they don’t identify with and did not want, and suffering its consequences every day.
The priest has spent years working at the intersection of scholarship, pastoral care and humanitarian aid for Middle Eastern Christians.
But travelling through Lebanon and Syria he felt for himself violence between Israel and Hezbollah continues to destabilise southern Lebanon and deepen fears among Christian communities.
“Yesterday we had drones above us,” he said. “Today there were attacks in Lebanon by Israel against Hezbollah.”
On May 25, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that military operations – started as part of the Iran war at the beginning of March – would intensify, claiming Hezbollah was not respecting the ceasefire.
He said Israel’s military was not taking its “foot off the gas. On the contrary, I said to step on the gas even more,” Reuters reported.
The result, Fr Zelazny said, is growing pressure on villages near the southern border.
“In some places, only small Christian towns remain,” he said. “The Muslims left those areas. There are tunnels where Hezbollah fighters hide. The Christians stay and live in a kind of constant siege.”
Many refuse to leave, fearing that departure would mean permanent exile.
“They say that if they leave, they will never return,” Fr Zelazny said.
Church aid reaches some of the isolated villages through Catholic networks coordinated by Caritas and the apostolic nunciature in Beirut. ACN’s director mentioned three communities in particular – Debel, Ain Ebel and Rmeich – where humanitarian assistance continues despite mounting insecurity.
For many Lebanese Christians, the future has narrowed into questions of survival.
Yet Fr Zelazny said the deeper danger is despair – especially among the young.
“The most painful thing is that when you speak to young people, they ask only about getting a visa,” he said. “They do not see a future for themselves in this country.”
FULL STORY
Church aid leader: Lebanese Christians don’t want mere survival, they want to ‘truly live’ (By Katarzyna Szalajko, OSV News)
