Memoricide parallels genocide in that the occupation destroys the cultural, religious and historical landmarks, as well as the cities and neighborhoods that are central to the targeted people’s identity.
Noor Sleiman
This article was translated from Arabic to English
Anger, sorrow and nostalgia weigh heavily on Mohammad, a young man in his thirties, as he walks through the streets of Beirut’s southern suburbs – streets he knows as intimately as the lines on the back of his hand. On one corner stood the café where lifelong friendships were forged; in another neighborhood, the medical center where his mother gave birth to him.
These were once vibrant places, bustling with life, but they now lie in ruins – a clear reminder of the relentless Israeli war machine’s destructive pursuit to erase the region’s identity and leave a scar on its people’s collective memory.
Over the past weeks of Israel‘s sustained aggression against Lebanon, airstrikes on the southern suburbs have intensified. Once confined to the night and early morning hours, the bombardment now continues almost around the clock. People wake up to the sound of missile fire and watch as residential buildings crumble, their insides spilling into the streets – furniture, personal belongings, and the lifetime savings of their inhabitants scattered like ash. More than 320 buildings in Beirut and its suburbs have either been destroyed or severely damaged.
Nestled between Beirut’s southern coastline and the foothills of Mount Lebanon, the southern suburbs are home to nearly a million people, comprising Lebanese – mainly migrants from the South and the Bekaa Valley – as well as Syrians, Palestinians and other nationalities. Its neighborhoods, such as Chiyah, Ghobeiry, Haret Hreik, Burj al-Barajneh, Bir al-Abed and Hay al-Sellom, are dense with history and life.
Often labeled in the media as a “Hezbollah stronghold,” the area is reduced to a single political narrative, overlooking its rich social and economic diversity. While it hosts institutions and headquarters linked to the party, this label erases the suburbs broader civilian character, which includes schools, universities, hospitals, bustling commercial markets and vital infrastructure. Such oversimplifications feed into narratives that justify targeting the area, disregarding the human cost and the vibrant lives within its borders.
For Mohammad, the suburb is more than a geographic location; it is an intrinsic part of his identity. “The people here blend contradictions so seamlessly,” he tells Fanack. “They carry the gentleness and camaraderie of their southern and Bekaa villages, yet they’ve also adopted a toughness forged by economic hardships, security challenges and the scars of war.”
The longing for their rural roots is evident in the way residents have recreated village life within the suburb’s narrow streets and tightly packed buildings. “Everyone knows everyone here,” Mohammad explains. “People are always willing to lend a hand, even to strangers. Even though I no longer live in the suburb, the habits I learned from its people stay with me – like rushing to help someone in need, even if I don’t know them.”
Mohammad moved away four years ago, but the suburb remains a constant in his life. “Whenever I need something simple, like fixing my car, I come back here,” he says. “The shop owners are people I’ve known for years, some of whom inherited their trades from their fathers and grandfathers. Their reputation stretches beyond the suburb; even people from outside the area come here because they trust them.”
These ties, for Mohammad, are an extension of the adolescence and adulthood he experienced there. “As a teenager, life in the suburb seemed easy. I could casually join a conversation with strangers at a nearby café, and by the end of it, we’d be calling each other ‘brother’ or ‘friend.’ That sense of community shaped me and stays with me to this day.”
Memories Erased
Mohammad is overcome with memories as he stands in front of the wreckage of Montana, his favorite café in Chiyah. He had been there many times, whether it was for a boisterous get-together with friends, a cup of coffee to ease a disappointment, or a moment of respite after a long, hard day. The café had become a strangely familiar place that is difficult to find elsewhere.
In his mind, he reconstructs the building, imagining the café’s sign restored to its place – a beacon that had become a landmark over the years. For Mohammad, this act of mental reconstruction is a means to resist what he dubs “the assassination of memory” at the hands of the occupation.
In the southern suburbs, the occupation is attempting to carry out “memoricide” – a deliberate effort to erase the history and identity of a people. It mirrors what Israel has done in South Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and Gaza. This destruction is not limited to physical landmarks but extends to the social, cultural and symbolic elements that form a collective memory.
Memoricide parallels genocide in that the occupation destroys the cultural, religious and historical landmarks, as well as the cities and neighborhoods that are central to the targeted people’s identity.
For Mohammad, this war inflicted a dual loss. On one level, he grieves for loved ones, friends and acquaintances who were martyred. He recalls meeting one friend during a football game in a local stadium and another in one of the internet cafés that were popular in the early 2000s.
On another level, he grieves the destruction of the spaces that had brought these connections to life – places that offered him solace and strengthened his bonds with those he cared for.
The devastation of these places deepens Mohammad’s sorrow, intertwining his personal loss with the collective destruction of his community. Iconic spots, like the “Harqous” restaurant, were not just places to eat but integral parts of the suburb’s identity. The restaurant, destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, had become so renowned that the nearby roundabout was named after it. “Harqous was the people’s restaurant,” Mohammad says, recalling how he and his friends frequented it for its affordable prices, which made it accessible to everyone.
With a bittersweet smile, he shares a memory of calling a friend during the bombings to check if his favorite shawarma restaurant had survived. “Food, too, plays a role in our memories,” he says. For Mohammad, returning to that restaurant for a shawarma sandwich after the war would be a small but meaningful victory – a way to reclaim a piece of his life and his history.
“I couldn’t Recognize the Streets where I Spent my Childhood”
With a heavy heart, Iman, a young woman in her twenties, struggles to articulate the magnitude of her loss. Speaking to Fanack, she reflects on the profound devastation she has endured, describing her ongoing attempt to grasp what she calls “the annihilation of memory.” She asks, “How can a memory I created in two places be obliterated? And how can a party in this world wield so much power as to commit such crimes?”
From her southern border village of Blida to her home in Burj al-Barajneh, the shadow of Israeli destruction has pursued Iman relentlessly. In Blida, the Israeli army destroyed more than 70 per cent of the buildings in a systematic campaign of demolition, bulldozing and erasing historic homes and neighborhoods. The occupation claimed these actions were part of its operations against Hezbollah and its military infrastructure.
However, investigations by the Lebanese press reveal that the pattern of destruction extended beyond traditional warfare, targeting not only military objectives but also communities, their physical presence and their collective identity.
For a year and a half, the war forced Iman away from her village. Her understanding of its plight was limited to fragmented videos showing the vast destruction it has suffered. “I still don’t know if our house in Blida exists,” she admits. “What hurt me the most was seeing videos of the town’s neighborhoods and streets – places I once knew corner by corner – and not being able to recognize them. Their features have been wiped away.”
Seeking solace, Iman found refuge in her home in Burj al-Barajneh in Beirut’s southern suburb, a place she describes as “where I belong.” She lived for a decade in the same building as her grandfather’s apartment, a space imbued with childhood memories.
However, the security of home was once again shattered. The building was destroyed in an airstrike that not only targeted the structure but also aimed to erase the presence, memory and continuity of her family in the area.
Today, Iman feels like a stranger in her own country. She roams the streets of her displacement, searching in vain for the warmth she once felt in Burj al-Barajneh. The familiar bakeries, tailors, greengrocers and neighborhood shops have been replaced by a sense of alienation.
“These are not my streets,” she laments. “The streets I know have been erased. My home, where I would unwind after a long day at work, has been erased.” Iman knows there is no remedy for this disconnection except to return home – a hope that remains out of reach.
“I have no bad memories of Burj al-Barajneh,” she says. Yet, she avoids dwelling on the past or looking at images of the destruction, fearing the psychological toll. “I’m not ready to mourn. I haven’t been able to visit my destroyed home yet. Facing the reality would make the crime undeniable, a fact I’ve only encountered through the screen of my phone.”
Despite her efforts to suppress memories, one particular moment breaks through. A familiar scent – emanating from a tree – transports her back to her grandfather’s home in Blida. The nostalgic connection leaves her contemplating how simple things can evoke such deep longing for places she can no longer visit. She admits to feeling as though she has become a witness documenting the destruction of her house, her village and her memories.
“The occupation hasn’t just harmed my childhood and my past,” Iman says. “It’s harming my present and may even harm my future.”
This collective punishment inflicted by the occupation has a long history of brutality, culminating in what some have labeled a deliberate military strategy known as the “Dahiyeh doctrine.”
First employed during the 2006 war on Lebanon, this strategy calls for the use of massive and disproportionate force, deliberately targeting civilians and their infrastructure to pressure enemy groups and shift the tide of battle. The doctrine’s scorched-earth policy seeks to render areas uninhabitable by inflicting maximum damage on civilian populations and their environment.
This approach ensures that the human and material cost of retaliation becomes prohibitively high, while simultaneously weakening the social and physical fabric of the affected communities.
Such tactics flagrantly violate international law, including Article 51 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits targeting civilians, and Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which prohibits attacks on civilian sites not serving military purposes. These acts also contravene the principles of proportionality and precaution, constituting war crimes and collective punishment under international law.
“It’s not just a House, it’s a Part of my Soul”
Nabila, 60, comforts herself by scrolling through photos of flowers she had grown on her balcony in Haret Hreik before being displaced. She holds on to these pictures as they remind her of life before the war. Yet, when she receives a video showing partial destruction of her home caused by an Israeli airstrike targeting a nearby building, she quickly deletes it.
“I don’t want to dwell on the details of the destruction; Pieces of my soul would be shattered. I just needed to confirm the house was still standing. The rest, I can handle,” she says.
Nabila had lived in that house her entire life. It was where she cared for her parents until they passed, and where she perfected the dishes her siblings and their children loved during their weekly visits for lunch.
“My routine was deeply tied to my neighborhood – morning chats with my neighbor on my balcony, trips to Abu Ali’s shop for groceries, and the familiar faces I greeted on the streets. All of it was an inseparable part of my day,” she recounts.
For Nabila, her house was much more than four walls and a roof. “It’s where I built my own world,” she says.
The markets and shops she knew so well were reduced to rubble by relentless airstrikes. The bustling streets, once teeming with life, are now a ghost town, haunted by the roar of warplanes that signal more destruction to come.
The occupation seeks to strip the region of any sense of safety, severing its residents’ connection to their homeland. The aim is to replace their bond with terror and force displacement, rendering the area unlivable and extinguishing any hope of return. With unyielding Western support and the international community’s failure to hold it accountable, the occupation wields its power to obliterate entire communities in seconds.
Even Cemeteries haven’t been Spared.
In the Rawdat al-Shahidain cemetery in the southern suburbs, Mohammad’s older brother and several of his friends are buried. Mohammad believed this sacred ground would remain untouched until he saw a video showing the damage caused by Israeli strikes.
“Under occupation, even the dead are not afforded rest,” Mohammad says. “I haven’t been to my brother’s grave yet. I’m afraid of seeing it in ruins after witnessing the destruction of another cemetery in the area of Al-Radouf. It feels like they’re exhuming graves, and I don’t know how I’d react if I saw my brother’s resting place like that. But I know the overwhelming anguish would consume me.” Thinking about how his brother was targeted even in death makes Mohammad feel as if the occupation has turned this into a personal vendetta.
In the south, similar scenes unfold as cemeteries are razed, severing spiritual bonds that bind locals to the ground where their loved ones are buried. The destruction is an attempt to uproot people from their towns, knowing that no matter how far they may roam, they would always return to pay respect to their dead.
Cemeteries are essential cultural and spiritual landmarks. Targeting them constitutes a war crime and violates international laws, including Article 53 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and Article 4 of the 1954 Hague Convention, which protect cultural property during armed conflict.
Life Beyond the Suburbs Feels Impossible
In defiance of this erasure, Mohammad clings to the vivid memories he has of the southern suburbs. “I used to walk its streets so often that every corner is etched in my mind. War can’t take that away,” he says.
He believes it is the duty of the suburb’s people to preserve its stories and share its humanity with the world. “Talking about the suburbs – the human and social dimensions people don’t know about – keeps its history and significance alive. Memory is a form of resistance,” he explains.
Mohammad recalls the destruction of Shura Square during the 2006 war. “I passed by that area every day on my way to school. After the war, I visited and noticed that the tree in the square had survived. That alone comforted me. Sometimes, the smallest details keep a place alive,” he reflects. Nothing, he says, can alter his connection to the southern suburbs or weaken his bond with it.
For Iman, her feelings oscillate between despair and determination. She knows she cannot spend her entire life mourning her memories.
“We will return. We’ll rebuild our memories and create new ones. But some things are irreplaceable. The historic neighborhoods of my village and the old buildings are gone forever. Yes, we can reconstruct the buildings in Burj al-Barajneh that was destroyed, but I’ll never get my grandfather’s house back or the intricate details that shaped my family’s memories of that place,” she says.
For Nabila, return is simply a matter of time. She knows exactly what she’ll do the moment she sets foot in her home again: sweep away the broken glass, restore everything to its place, check on her flowers – if any have survived – and dust off every single leaf. She’ll prepare coffee and invite her neighbor over to share it. “I’ll drink coffee in my house. I’ll laugh for the first time in months. But I’ll cry a lot too,” she says.
Until then, her life remains on hold. “I can’t imagine life outside the suburbs,” she admits.
Disclaimer
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect on 27 November 2024 as announced by parties to the conflict.