Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷22h ago
Majd al-Shihabi 🏴 مجد الشهابي

Beirut was my home for almost 4 years when I was studying urban planning at the American University of Beirut, and I have a lot of loved ones in the city.

Following today's Israeli terror strikes, I spent the morning checking on people... Of course, everyone is shaken, but they feel compelled to reassure us that they're ok.

Everyone I checked with was grateful for my messages, to know that they are not forgotten.

A friend sent me a video of a building that was struck by an Israeli missile. It was less than 100m away from my apartment on the waterfront, and maybe 200m from the AUB campus. Two friends lived in the building adjacent to that building that now is mostly rubble. I couldn't get to them, but I heard through other friends that they're ok.

The rubble from the terror strike is piled on the street, burying cars under it, blocking the street that I walked every day to get to campus.

Israel is a terrorist state.

#Beirut #Lebanon #Palestine #Iran

Apr 8 at 6:48pmWeb
Show threadMajd al-Shihabi 🏴 مجد الشهابي1d ago

There is a slightly funny and surreal #Beirut moment from that Israeli terror strike video.

Adjacent to the struck building, there's a gorgeous heritage building with an unobstructed view to the Mediterranean, looking over the Ayn elMrayseh old mosque. Perfect location.

Since the early 2010s, there has been an ongoing epic battle between the urbanists and heritage activists vs the owner of the building. He wants to demolish to build a massive high rise in its place. He managed to evict the old tenants, drill a massive hole in the floor of two of the floors to render it uninhabitable. But the activists got a court injunction to stop the demolition, and the developer was forced to build external scaffolding to prevent additional structural damage.

Well, after today's strike, the videos show that the building is still standing perfectly. I'm sure that the owner would have loved for the strike to demolish it too, but alas, that's not how fate works.

#urbanism

Show threadLovesTha🥧1d ago
@majdal he needs to send the US intelligence services a few lies
Show threadwakest likes your bugs ⁂1d ago
@majdal thank you for your words. What a heartbreaking world we live in right now.
Show threadMajd al-Shihabi 🏴 مجد الشهابي1d ago

@liaizon My solace is that everyone is finally feeling the heartbreak that we in the region have been saying for a century.

The heartbreak the background hum of our lives, just as persistent as the hum of the terror drones flying over Beirut, whose sound I hear in every voice recording that they send me.

But you know what is more persistent? Our will to live. We live through, around, and despite the heartbreak, with tenderness and love.

I'm reminded of a poem by Rafeef Ziadah, she wrote it more than 14 years ago, during another Israeli invasion of Gaza.

"We teach life, sir"

I hope that we manage to persist in our tenderness after this nightmare is over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKucPh9xHtM

Rafeef Ziadah - 'We teach life, sir', London, 12.11.11

YouTube
Show threadTed Lemon1d ago

@majdal @liaizon

I think it was that awful explosion in 2020 that made Beirut real for me. Prior to that it had just been a place I heard about on the news when I was a teenager, and then silent. But the pictures after the explosion, and everything we learned about how it happened, suddenly made it a real, living place.

And now it's being deliberately bombed. Again. It's really heartbreaking.

Show threadA-Dub 🥝1d ago
@majdal ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹
Show thread🏳️‍🌈 Bri 🌞🚴🌱✨1d ago
@majdal I'm glad the people you checked with are safe. My heart goes out to the people in Lebanon 💔 My friend says it's been awful, too
Show threadoheso20h ago
@majdal @kimlockhartga I just now had dinner with an old friend, and it didn’t occur me until now that she went to school in Beirut in the 60s-70s. She didn’t mention it tonight.
Show threadKim Possible 18h ago
@oheso @majdal I think the people of Lebanon have not gotten the attention they deserve.
Show threadMajd al-Shihabi 🏴 مجد الشهابي12h ago
@kimlockhartga @oheso Same for Syria... and everyone else in the region that is living in the terror of the expansionist settler colonial war machine nearby
Show threadKim Possible 10h ago
@majdal @oheso 💯