"I have a little girl who was pulled from under the rubble; she lost five of her siblings and her father. She and her mother survived – no one else. She is ten years old. She still can’t remember anything. It’s due to the effects of the trauma; she simply forgets everything." The voice of Dr Norma Helou Bitar, a clinical psychologist in Sidon, does not falter as she recounts the stories that have passed through her practice since September 2024 when the war in Lebanon spiralled into chaos. The months of cross-border skirmishes are now behind us, but far from being a distant memory, the attacks continue to reverberate these days, albeit with less intensity. Since then, however, the conflict has swept everything away: mass attacks, relentless aerial bombardments, ceasefires that were dead on arrival, and a severe humanitarian crisis that was already suffocating the country even before the war.
The doctor offers a diagnosis of a country that is fracturing from within – a rift running through the social fabric long before the first pillars of reconstruction are erected. She is well acquainted with memory and forgetting. She describes what is currently happening in southern Lebanon as a wound to the “collective psyche”. She begins the interview with RTVE Noticias by explaining that no words can do justice to the scale of the damage. “It will take generations for the psychological wounds to heal before the physical damage can be repaired,” she states, whilst shouldering the burden of a practice that is, in essence, a refuge for those who have lost their sense of reality.
Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres away, in Bürgenstock (a secluded, luxury resort in the Swiss Alps), Lebanon’s fate is being decided at the negotiating table. Last Sunday saw the start of attempts to reach a lasting peace agreement between the United States and Iran in an atmosphere tainted by mistrust, marked by fresh threats from US President Donald Trump. But the reality of war has taken hold in the small Arab country known as “the Switzerland of the Middle East”, as Bitar describes it; the air has become thick, laden with an uncertainty that hangs heavy on every corner, in the streets of Beirut and in every town and village in the south.
Everything fell apart once again on 28 February 2026; this day marked a new, irreversible turning point: the direct clash between Tehran and Tel Aviv ceased to be a latent threat and became a regional conflagration that engulfed Lebanon. The country, which was already teetering on the brink, was dragged into the epicentre of this global-scale conflict. Since hostilities escalated unchecked in March, the figures tell the story of an unending tragedy: 3,980 people have lost their lives, more than 12,000 have been injured and 1.2 million have seen their homes turn into a desperate flight or an endless wait in shelters that are barely coping. However, more than 400,000 Lebanese have returned to their homes in the south of the country following the partial truce in the conflict with Israel. Hanine El Sayed, Lebanon’s Minister for Social Affairs, has pointed out that the number of returnees represents approximately 40 per cent of the displaced population.
"The Lebanese people are exhausted," says Dr Bitar. She points out that it is not just the aftermath of the 2026 war; it is the aftermath of 2006, it is the economic crisis that left people’s pockets empty long before the bombs began to fall, "it is the pandemic and the imposed state of orphanhood," she laments. “Every time a Lebanese person lifts their head a little to catch their breath, they become frustrated again and fall back down,” explains Norma.
Depression, complex post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder are the most invisible wounds suffered by a people forced to live from one day to the next. Young people, who used to be the driving force of the country, feel trapped: “There is no education, no productivity, no future that is not held hostage by the next sound of a shell, whether in the imagination or in reality.”
Southern Lebanon has become an open wound. Amani Sheaito, aged 35, embodies the desolation that sets in when one loses the right to a home. Her parents’ house in the Al-Tira neighbourhood, in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon, is now just a memory. Her home in Dahieh, the densely populated suburb that was once a Hezbollah stronghold, is still standing, but she has not returned. “Even with the ceasefire, we don’t trust Israel,” Amani tells RTVE Noticias over the phone.
For her, the “yellow line” – or the so-called “safety zone” – that Israeli troops insist on maintaining is a death sentence for her people. “Israel is implementing the same scorched-earth policy that we saw in Gaza, in Khan Yunis. They are doing here exactly what they did there. It is savage brutality, with no red lines,” she says with a mixture of indignation and resignation.
Mohamad Kleit, a veteran journalist who is currently travelling through the devastated areas of the south, far from speaking of truces, explains to RTVE Noticias that “the situation in nearby towns remains uninhabitable”. Meanwhile, people are trying to return to towns such as Tyre and Nabatieh. At least four people were killed on Monday, including the headteacher of a nursery school, when an Israeli drone struck the vehicle they were travelling in on a road in the town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa, thus shattering a week of relative calm during which only sporadic shelling had been reported.
The region is slowly returning to normality. Those returning after months in exile are faced with the task of rebuilding their lives from the rubble left by Israeli bombs, whilst living under the constant threat that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah might flare up again. Meanwhile, inside the Israeli exclusion zone, the area remains a graveyard of homes and shattered hopes.
This photograph, taken from a location in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, shows an Israeli military vehicle travelling along a road in southern Lebanon on 22 June 2026. AFP
The question on most people’s minds is not just “when will we return”, but “who decides whether we will return”. For Amani Sheaito, the Lebanese state is an “empty shell” at the negotiating table. “The state went to negotiate with Israel without having any tools or strong cards to exert pressure,” she explains with some irritation. “It is Iran that is negotiating for Lebanon’s sake. They are the ones who secured the ceasefire and who are now pressing for an Israeli withdrawal,” she says with some irritation. On Monday, Lebanon’s President, Joseph Aoun, and the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, formally called for greater international pressure on Israel to force the withdrawal of its troops from the south and put an end to the operations of “systematic destruction and demolition” of villages in the area. During a video conference with the US Working Group on Lebanon, Aoun warned that the continued presence of Israeli forces completely prevents the deployment of the Lebanese Army and hinders the laying of the foundations for a “just and lasting” peace.
It is this dependence that fuels the darkest fears. Amani, like so many others, sees Benjamin Netanyahu not only as a military leader, but as someone capable of anything. “Israel has been humiliated, and that is what is frightening,” she confesses. “There is a fear that Netanyahu might lose his mind, that he might carry out a massacre, that he might attack Beirut, that he might decide that, if he doesn’t win, nobody can win,” she adds. It is the anguish of a people who feel they are pawns in a game where the Israeli Prime Minister acts with a sense of impunity that US oversight mechanisms have, so far, been unable to curb.
Added to this uncertainty is the weight of an economic crisis that shows no sign of letting up. Ever since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz caused tension on global markets, the price of energy and basic commodities has soared, further suffocating those who had already lost everything. “People are tired; it’s only natural that anyone would grow weary of this inflation and these rising prices,” says Amani. “Everything has become more expensive, but this doesn’t mean they’ve given up – not at all. They have no problem carrying on if the aim is to reclaim their land,” she concludes.
However, amidst this collective sense of disarray, the fabric of Lebanese society – despite its deep sectarian divisions – has shown unexpected resilience. Where war seeks to divide, hospitality has flourished as an act of silent defiance. “In truth, every region welcomed its guests with the utmost sincerity and empathy,” explains Dr Bitar. “Every displaced person from the south, in every region they have sought refuge in, is treated as an honoured guest,” adds the psychologist. It is a harmony that surprises even those experiencing it: communities with different religious identities opening their homes and lives to those displaced from the south, sharing bread and shelter.
Such is the paradox of Lebanon in 2026: whilst official policy proves ineffective and violence erodes entire regions, civil society maintains a cohesion that seems to be the only pillar that has not collapsed. Political leaders, perhaps out of necessity or under pressure, have not allowed the crisis of the displaced to turn into the sectarian conflict that many feared. “Fortunately, they are not fuelling tensions,” notes Amani. “On the contrary, thank God, there is coexistence,” she says. It is important to remember that the country is made up of a delicate mosaic comprising 18 religious denominations and, once again, the conflict threatens to shatter the coexistence and power-sharing arrangement between Christians, Sunnis and Shias established in 1943.
The future, however, remains a blank page pending the outcome of the round of negotiations in Switzerland, which have been suspended and are due to resume next week, as announced by the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif. Meanwhile, Israeli troops are entrenched along that ‘yellow line’ which devours villages and condemns their inhabitants to a life ‘on hold’ – a pause that drags on. Aware that, when the din finally ceases, an entire generation will have to face the most difficult task of all: rebuilding not only the brick walls, but also the memories that the war forced them to erase.
An article written by Ebbaba Hameida (RTVE), initially published on 7 July 2026, 07:10 (CEST)