Night Shift, or How I Lost the Sun

It is difficult to recall the events of stressful periods coherently. In Lebanon, stressful times tend to stretch out and can often seem never-ending, which makes the act of remembering even more difficult. How can I form a memory if I am still living the experience? As of this writing, over a million people have been systematically displaced, while occupation forces attempt to seize land in southern Lebanon and the Zionist entity continues to commit massacres against civilians. Despite the accumulated exhaustion and confusion of living under the constant threat of war, I have tried to piece together a coherent account of my experiences using the memories, notes, or journals I have retained. 

October 18, 2025

I was born in Beirut in late 1989, 11 years into the occupation of the South and seven years after its invasion. I spent the first 10 years of my life in love with the natural splendor of my hometown, al-Suwaneh, a small tobacco farming village in the South. But I also grew up in fear of an ever-present danger, the sounds and smells of war, and I quickly learned that violence could erupt on our doorstep at any moment. My father would often point to the mountain facing ours to the south and say, “hay Falasteen.”

October 21, 2025

The image of Muhammad al-Durrah, his face contorted with fear and helplessness while his father tries in vain to shield him from the occupation’s bullets.

The cautionary tale of Khadija Mouzannar, a 12-year-old girl from my village who was killed in 1995 after picking up an explosive device shaped like a toy.

The way the faces of adults would fall when they said “Sabra w Shatila,” “Qana,” or “Falasteen.” I could feel the weight of these words before I learned the facts about them.

The bomb shelter under our al-Suwaneh home — naked grey concrete and the smell of mildew. The adults always arguing over which spot would be safest if the house was hit. A toad lived in there at one point; we let it be and huddled up in a corner.

My mother once prepared an emergency bag with all our valuables before going to sleep, in anticipation of attacks in the night. She placed all the cash our family had on hand and all of her jewelry in it. When the bombs went off, she left it behind to grab us from our bedrooms.

In 1998, I received a toy rifle as a gift for Eid. It had a matte black barrel and a beige plastic handle that almost looked like real wood (tomboys everywhere would have been so jealous.) That night, we heard the familiar roar of warplanes in the distance. The grown-ups quickly switched on the news; military operations had restarted, and it was no longer safe to remain in the South. I picked up my prized rifle, slung it over my shoulder, and began to pace back and forth like a soldier on duty. I remember thinking it might make the grown-ups feel safer.

The parachute flare, or the “light bomb” as we called it. Did they really fire that over our house or am I just remembering my fear that they would? Fear is the part of my memories that lingers the longest. I don’t remember seeing the “light bomb,” but I remember what it meant: dawn in the middle of the night, followed by fire and death.

October 23, 2025

I asked about the parachute flare. Apparently, it was dropped on a near-daily basis over the heavily wooded areas at the edges of al-Suwaneh, leaving a silken cloth behind.

November 1, 2023

The liberation of the southern villages in 2000 was followed by a short respite from the threat of violence. It wasn’t until about 2003 that I stopped expecting the worst at the slam of every door or at the occasional backfiring of exhaust pipes in the street.

Then came the 33-day war of 2006. I was stuck in al-Suwaneh under heavy shelling the first seven days. Most of the bombing took place at night, slowing only between 6 a.m. and noon. It was the only time we could sleep for more than two consecutive hours without being jolted awake by unbearably loud explosions. Over the course of the war, our bodies adapted to that rhytm. I was 16.

October 29, 2025

I found an article published on July 15, 2006. In it, Bassam Haddad writes: “I slept after 7 a.m., with one thought: what will I wake up to? How many people will die while I sleep?”

November 1, 2023

As a child, I never understood my mother’s constant chorus of thanks to the Almighty. But during that week in July of 2006, I came to understand exactly what those prayers were for, and why she felt they were necessary. I came to the same, albeit harsher, more urgent understanding after Toufan al-Aqsa in 2023 and the widely documented massacres that followed. I remind myself that where thankfulness falls short, resistance must endure. It is our collective duty to transform our anger into a weapon for liberation.

October 18, 2025

On the final day of the 2006 war, I was thankful to be safe and reunited with my loved ones in Beirut, and angry at the world for allowing so much death and destruction to happen. We lost our home, but I was relieved that all of my family members were safe. At 6 a.m., two hours before the ceasefire was supposed to begin, a blast louder than any we had heard under the heavy shelling in the South shook Beirut. Large containers had exploded overhead, scattering “leaflets” (read: propaganda), but for a moment I believed it was the sound of death. 

I haven’t felt safe sleeping at night since. Now, almost 20 years later, I am effectively nocturnal.

That is how I lost the sun. I do not know how to get it back.

November 4, 2023 

In November 2023, sisters Dana and Aya Baraket tore down propaganda posters in the streets of New York, and I cheered them on from Beirut. I read that they were both very small children when the 33-day war happened, and that their neighbors’ house was decimated in front of their eyes, killing everyone inside. A few days later, Regina Spektor, an established recording artist I had once admired, referred to pro-Palestinian activists as hypocrites in an Instagram post, and described Dana (who was 19 at the time) as “a young lesbian (whom Hamas would rape, then kill).” I haven’t lost respect for a formerly beloved artist so quickly since Thom Yorke.

December 15, 2023

In December 2023, Bisan Owda explained that she had to cut her hair because it was no longer possible to maintain it with the lack of water and basic amenities across Gaza. Before ending up in a bomb shelter in the South at 16, I had let myself be peer pressured into growing my hair out. I was told that I could no longer play tomboy now that I was almost an adult, and I felt I had to accept everyone’s decision. But I didn’t want to die looking like that, and as soon as that war ended, I cut my hair short again. The 33 days of war in Lebanon during 2006 were almost fleeting compared to the unfathomable suffering of the Palestinian people, who are routinely driven out of their homes and denied all basic rights, not only during the ongoing genocide, but for the past eight decades. I feel a familiar pang of guilt for making the comparison.

January 19, 2024 

I scroll through an endless barrage of horrifying headlines and one particular news item stops me in my tracks: the killing of Muhammad al-Durrah’s brother. They also killed two of his uncles, his aunt, and his cousin. The images of Muhammad’s death, filmed and broadcast in 2000, shook us to our core. They made international headlines and became a part of our collective memory. This time there will be no global outrage. Five members of Muhammad’s family were killed, and they barely made the local news.

July 26, 2024

Was that an air raid? Or just
A generator turning on
A motorcycle approaching
The neighbors shutting a window
Abou Firas dragging the trash bin away
That was just thunder
Those were definitely fireworks
That was the wind
Don’t be scared

I’ve been on the night shift for 18 years now. We can’t all be asleep. Someone has to stay alert. I’m tired, but I cannot leave my shift. The war is back.

March 16, 2025

While I was relatively safe in Beirut, this time the war took away my protector, as it did others. Hasan was a man I loved. He was the son of my steadiest aunt and the father of my most loyal friend. He taught me how to build a fire, and that if you squint at the embers at night, they look just like hills dotted with lights in the distance. In his final days, he stood his ground and defended our land fiercely. What good did my night shift do him?

October 19, 2025

Of course it did him no good. After all, it didn’t matter if I was asleep or awake; in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t even matter if I was alive or dead. I was not made stronger by my experiences of war, nor have I become more resilient or fearless or wise. I spend my days asleep and my nights waiting for the next loud noise.

October 20, 2025

My night shift isn’t a result of the all-night bombings or the parachute flares; it doesn’t prevent me from being caught off guard. It is the easier path I chose for myself. I watch a British man on YouTube installing ponds in his garden in an attempt to “rewild” it. I imagine myself digging a garden in my back yard in al-Suwaneh and planting my favorite herbs, or building an insect hotel and placing it near the house for the rose chafers and shield bugs to explore. My Suwaneh would not even need to be “rewilded;” if the British man could see the wealth of biodiversity that exists in one square kilometer of the village, his little sunburnt head would probably explode. I could do it: pack a large bag and drive two hours south, take down invasive species, replant native trees, leave out water for the jackals and hyenas on hot summer nights, and finally belong to a world where existence is worthwhile. I am still scared though. During the tenuous calm of the so-called ceasefire in Lebanon, I would force myself to visit every once in a while, and sometimes it was just as terrifying as I remembered. But it was always as glorious.