Martyrdom as The First Act of Return

To me, this image embodies return to southern Lebanon. Hajj Haytham, a shepherd from Tayr Debba who stayed through the war, told me these goats are all that remains of his livelihood, and that he’s barely getting by. His greatest wealth is the village; his smallest, the flock he cares for.

The first thing he did when he saw me holding a camera was to ask me to wait. He said he needed to put on his hearing aids so he could hear my questions. His need to communicate was very touching; he stopped every passing car, speaking with people for at least five to ten minutes, asking about everything. I felt like he had been alone for a very long time. I didn’t just feel it; he really had been. He had spent nearly 44 days alone in the village, rarely seeing anyone else.

Now it seemed life had returned to him as people came to check on their homes before heading back to Beirut, while others arrived with their mattresses. This scene was striking to me; it was the manifestation of a decision taken by some southerners to permanently return home.

Return to Srifa

To me, the essence of return has always been bound up with martyrdom. I saw it most clearly when we would return to the border villages during the war of Jabhat al-Isnad (Support Front), and after the 66-day war. It’s as if the martyr's return to his village carries the rest of us with him. This is why I view martyrdom as the first act of return. 

To me, the essence of return was always linked to the act of martyrdom.

This image is from Srifa, a town whose walls are lined with portraits of martyrs. As soon as I entered Srifa, I felt that a martyr was greeting us, as if there was a mutual exchange of greetings. It's as if I felt his gesture and smile. 

I felt this martyr also embodied our young fighters in the villages, those whose faces we often don't know until their souls leave us — only then do we come to know their faces. But I believe, in some way, they're always around us, smiling and greeting us. It's their absence and their transformation into images that makes them visible to us. For me, this was the greeting at the entrance of the village.

Return to Jwayya

In the village of Jwayya, these images and words were painted on the walls. There, I met a man who said he had spent the entire war in the village, working as a medic. The writing on the wall felt like his own voice, as if he was warning anyone who passed by: “Don’t come near me, there are unexploded ordinances that could go off.”

The only truce he said he needed was from his own memories of the war.

He was laughing softly and said the writing on the wall mirrored his own feelings. What struck me the most was his use of language we now hear often: “truce,” and what it truly means. The only truce he said he needed was from his own memories of the war.

Destruction in Tayr Debba

The final image shows the rubble of a house, also in Tayr Debba. It makes me question the very act of turning such destruction into an image, as if it breaches the sanctity of something profoundly personal. But when a house is blown apart, the boundaries of privacy associated with it, all the intimate details of life through this house, are dissolved.

I want this rubble to serve as proof of a life once lived. 

The very function of a home, its essential role as a place of safety, is transformed once it’s destroyed. It becomes an indictment; tangible proof of what the enemy has done. Yet the irony isn't lost on me: as if I need images of rubble and ruin to confirm the barbarity of this enemy. I would rather these images bear witness to our existence and to the life once held within a home that stood here. I want this rubble to serve another purpose, not just as evidence of a crime, but as proof of a life that was once lived. 

The questions I have about the role of such images, and of the function of this rubble itself, are still open-ended for now.