Lebanese Shia from the border with Israel
I am Lebanese, from the south. I have always wanted peace , not as a slogan, but as the simple right to live normally, raise children without fear, and believe that the future can be better than the past.
The war took away much of the life I had built. My family home in my village was destroyed. It was not just a building: it held years of work, trees my father planted, a place for my children to play, and the idea that they would grow up connected to where we came from. Now they ask why we cannot go there, and I do not always know how to answer.
I do not write this to ask anyone to deny Israeli fear, trauma, or loss. I know that peace requires seeing the humanity of people on both sides. But I need Israelis who want peace to understand something too: people in south Lebanon are not Hezbollah simply because they are Shia, or because of the village in which they were born. They are families, farmers, workers, children, grandparents . people with ordinary lives, memories, and hopes.
When whole villages, homes, roads, fields, and civilian life are destroyed, it becomes very difficult to hear talk of a future peace. How can we build trust if people feel that their existence, their homes, and their roots are treated as disposable? How can Lebanese children believe in coexistence when the places that formed their belonging are erased?
I do not want revenge. I do not want anyone’s children to live with the sound of war. I want a future in which neither Lebanese nor Israelis have to flee at night, check the news obsessively, or explain destruction to their children.
Peace cannot mean that one side feels safe while the other is expected to accept permanent fear, loss, and destruction. It has to mean that all of us are allowed to exist, to grieve, to rebuild, and to live with dignity.
That is the future I still want to believe in.