Between Duty and Pain: When Only the Archive Remains

On March 2, 2026, I woke my mother up a few minutes before the call to prayer at dawn so we could eat before starting our fast, as it was still Ramadan. Just minutes later, I heard the sound of a rocket falling right by our home in Nabatieh, and saw my brother shielding my mother with his body. At that moment, I was transported to October 27, 2024 — as if no time had passed at all, as if it were still the same war. Back then, air raids on the Nabatieh area were almost weekly, and it became habitual, as if we had fully normalized the aggression. But in that moment, my survival mode kicked in — and we were plunged right back into the war. I picked up the camera that hasn’t left my side in three years. I started thinking of everything I would need for on-the-ground coverage: the equipment, the tools, even the chair and  gas stove, and how much coffee and food I would store in the car.

As the aggression escalated, my feelings didn’t change much. If anything, all the feelings I tried to suppress over the last 15 months during the ceasefire had now returned. I was mentally prepared, as if it were a normal day. And I knew exactly what to document, how to act under bombardment, where to go, and how to move around. I work alone, without a team. My decisions are mine alone, and my choices are open, given that I’m a freelance photographer and field correspondent. But war isn’t just coverage. 

During the 66-Day War, I lost my friends Ahmad Hammoud and Ismail Hoteit in one airstrike, around 600 meters from where I was. I didn’t know in that moment that they had been martyred right in front of my eyes. Since that day, I always walk by the location of the airstrike; I stand, I read the fatiha, and I recall their memory. As for my friend Qassem Sabah, we were in touch daily during the war. We used to ask each other where the airstrike fell, if there were injuries, or if we knew anyone among the victims. On the day of his martyrdom, I asked him “where are you, Qassem?”... but he was the target, the last time we met. Before he ascended, we had promised each other to have coffee in the main square of Nabatieh at the end of the war. But he was martyred. Now I visit his grave every week, and I have a cup of coffee with him at the cemetery.

After the ceasefire, we would meet daily in Nabatieh: with Abdallah Kahil, Mohammed Kahil, Hadi Hamed, and Jawad Jaber. We would stay up late, trying to bring back life to this city ravaged by war. We laughed, despite everything. Hadi Hamed was injured in the pager massacre and became blind. But he never dealt with himself as a victim: he was patient and faithful. He was present in every gathering, in every laugh, as though he was defying the war with the power of his will. Until November 2025, when an airstrike targeted their car, and they were all martyred.

I lost almost all of my close friends in the two wars. I alone survived. In the 15 months after the ceasefire announcement, I tried to work on a documentary film about daily life in the war. But I couldn’t, I wasn't able to face the archive. Every frame involves someone’s face, and every face is a story, and every story is one of pain. At the start of this 2026 war, I remember my neighbor, the martyr Hussein Darwich, standing by the entrance of our house one morning at 6 a.m. and saying to me: “Get your parents out. Hopefully it will be over in a couple of weeks.” Hussein was martyred in the second week — and the war was over for him, indeed. His brother Hassan Darwich had preceded him to martyrdom in the first week.

I would always ask myself: Why do I document? For whom? But the answer came from the place itself, from the people themselves. After a drone strike targeted a motorbike at the entrance of Nabatieh on March 24, 2026, 16-year-old Joud Sleiman and Ali Hassan Nizar Jaber were martyred. They were close friends. I had lived with them and documented their lives in the paramedics unit during the last war.

One time, I returned to the archive. I found a recording of Joud talking about his feelings, about how he doesn’t want to take his Brevet [national exams] or leave the city because he’s helping people. Joud, the boy afraid of taking his exams, was not afraid of the enemy and his arsenal.

During the last war, most members of the Nabatieh municipality were martyred. I was 500 meters away from the targeted building, along with 15 paramedics, including Joud. He drove the car that day and dropped me off at a safe spot so I can film. Between then and now, I couldn’t save him or deliver him to a safe place. Joud was martyred and all that’s left is his voice and image. Afterwards, his father thanked me, saying, “Thank you Abbas, ever since Joud was martyred, I’ve been watching this video and rewatching it.” The video remains so he narrates a part of his story, a part of his life, of his innocence. That’s when I understood. I don’t document the war alone. I document people. It’s a duty, toward my city, toward my people, toward those who have left us but whose stories remain.

I understood that I don’t document the war alone. I document people. It’s a duty, toward my city, toward my people, toward those who have left us but whose stories remain.

In the archive, faces interweave before we learn their fates. I filmed Joud, like I filmed the head of the municipality, the martyr Dr. Ahmad Kahil — after Israel targeted the Souk of Nabatieh, in an attempt to erase our place-based memory of the city. That was his last photo.

The image used to have more power. It used to move people and change something within, compelling them to action. But after three years of drowning in images of slaughter — with massacres transmitted live on air from Gaza — the image has become worthless. It has stamped into us killing, erasure, displacement, and dehumanization.

I remember the image of the Mansouri massacre, the man who was running with several martyred children in his arms. I also remember the Qana massacre: the remains of children, the faces, the unbearable silence that remains after the image. My father was there. He was a paramedic and a photographer at the same time. He rescued people with one hand, while documenting with the other. He was in the heart of the massacre, not hiding behind the image. He lived it in every detail. Maybe that’s why I feel like I didn’t choose this path, but I continue along it. I document so memory is not erased. I document because they can no longer tell their stories. I document because this is my city, and this is its story.