The Public Source - مصدر عام

16/08/2024

[Photos of the Week] "The War in Jabal Amel": Viewers attend a photography exhibition showcasing photographs from the South in Beirut on Tuesday. The exhibition, featuring pictures of the Israeli aggression taken by photographers Fatima Joumaa and Hassan Fneish, is a "first step toward sharing a fraction of these images, and creating an interactive experience that makes spectators feel close to the scene," Joumaa tells The Public Source, adding that "perhaps the audience will come to consider themselves a part of this confrontation."

"The image itself is an act of resistance," Joumaa says about the role of photographers during wartime. "Documenting this war on the front lines, following funerals and devastation and villagers, has left us with a large archive of raw material."

An upcoming photo essay by Joumaa and Fatima Fouad documents the steadfastness of the villagers of Houla, and centers around the martyr Hassan Ali Qassem Hussein and his funeral in Houla. Stay tuned for its release next week.

August 13, 2024. Beirut, Lebanon. (Marwan Bou Haidar/The Public Source)

09/08/2024

[Photos of the Week] "Psychological Warfare": V***r trails from Israeli warplanes streak the sky over central Beirut in May. Israeli mock raids across Lebanon, alongside actual airstrikes, have been a consistent feature of the war, with deafening sonic bombs spreading anger and fear among residents. This week, Israeli warplanes performed particularly loud sonic bombs over the capital three days in a row, including intense sonic booms timed to coincide with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's speech on Tuesday. In the speech, he said that the delay in responding to Fouad Shukr's July 30 assassination is causing financial and psychological damage to the Zionist state as Israelis anticipate a coming retaliation.

Between October 21, 2023 and June 20, 2024 Israeli warplanes committed 3,367 violations of Lebanese airspace with a total of 11,541 hours of flight time over Lebanon, according to UNIFIL data.

Photos 1–2: May 11, 2024. Beirut, Lebanon.
Photos 3-4: August 6, 2024. Beirut, Lebanon.

07/08/2024

In “Navigating the Economic Crisis Through a Solidarity Economy,” sociologist Rana Sukarieh makes the case for learning from solidarity initiatives to strengthen community bonds and enhance resilience.

As 98,750 people have been displaced from south Lebanon, rent across Beirut and Mount Lebanon has recently skyrocketed from an average of $300 to as high as $1,400/month, a 367% increase, with real estate agents also demanding months of rent in advance.

Israeli occupation forces continue to devastate large parts of the South; building economies of solidarity, like housing cooperatives, could help provide a lifeline to people in need of housing.

Edited by Simon Assaf.
Photo Credit: Cooperativa de trabajo La tinta.

Lessons from the solidarity economies in Tunisia, Greece, Spain, and Argentina.

04/08/2024

On the fourth commemoration of the August 4 Beirut port explosion, we revisit survivors we profiled three years ago. Not a single government official has checked on them in those three years.

Three years ago, we revealed how the Lebanese government disabled hundreds in the port explosion and left them to fend for themselves.

Mohammad Ali, Mirna, Elie, and Fatima, like many others, continue to bear the cost of their medical care alone.

Written by Christina Cavalcanti.
Photos by Rita Kabalan.

“All You Can Do is Adapt to the Pain. And This Pain Isn’t Going Anywhere”

02/08/2024

[Photos of the Week] "Between Us Are the Days, the Nights, and the Battlefield": Torn concrete and twisted metal jut out from an apartment building in Haret Hreik the day after an Israeli drone strike killed seven people, including Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr. Meanwhile, a youth football team mourns teammate Hassan Fadlallah, 10, who was one of two children and five civilians killed in the strike. His sister Amira, 6, was killed alongside him.

Hezbollah confirmed Fouad Shukr's death on Wednesday evening, after approximately 24 hours of civil defense operations to locate him in the rubble. On Thursday Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah gave an address in which he said that a retaliation for the strike was certain but did not specify the nature of the retaliation or its timing. "The enemy and those behind the enemy must inevitably await our coming response," he said, "there is no discussion or dispute on this and between us are the days, the nights, and the battlefield." For now, the Lebanese people are waiting for the next stage of the war.

July 31, 2024. Haret Hreik, Beirut, Lebanon.

26/07/2024

[Photos of the Week] “All aboard?”: Passengers ride, some of them for the first time, Beirut’s new state-backed transportation offering—a bus from Nahr el-Mout to the Military Bath. The state Railways and Public Transport Authority (OCFTC) and the private company that recently received a renewable four-year contract to operate the buses, Ahdab Commuting & Trading Company, plan to expand service within Beirut and north to Tripoli, south to Sour, and east to Chtoura over the coming months. A previous attempt by OCFTC to operate the buses itself, in December 2022, foundered in just weeks due to a lack of funds.

Three passengers told The Public Source they prefer the new buses to the existing informal vans and buses that, along with shared taxis, currently provide Beirut’s shared transportation. “The vans are crowded, here there’s no crowding,” said Ali Hussein, as he rode the route still plied by Number 15 private vans and buses. Zafer Salim Kashlan agreed, adding that it is preferable to have a “proper and organized system” for public transport. The buses are also designed to be wheelchair accessible, but The Public Source did not see the wheelchair ramp in action.

But not everyone is happy. On the first day of the new service, July 10, several people vandalized the new buses, damaging one. Caretaker public works minister Ali Hamie and Ahdab president Aouni Ahdab implied the vandals are tied to the existing transport sector. “We didn’t learn from previous experiences,” transport activist Chadi F***j, of Riders Rights, told The Public Source, saying they had long anticipated “conflict and unfair competition between the existing informal sector… and the state sector” and pointing out that the state is providing resources to Ahdab as a private company that it does not provide to other companies that operate in the existing sector. “All states globally do policy integration between the two sectors to create a kind of justice,” he said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t learn from that.”

Beirut, Lebanon. July 24, 2024. (Omar el-Zaitouni/The Public Source)

26/07/2024

في قطاع غزة المحاصر منذ ما يزيد عن ١٧ عام، طالت حرب الإبادة الصهيونية ذاكرة المستقبل، ينهش المستعمِر أحلام المواطنين بعد أن سلبهم المكان والزمان، حتى باتت حياتهم محكومة بالانتظار، يمضون أيامهم من نزوح إلى آخر في محاولات شاقّة للصمود.

في هذه المادّة المصوّرة، يشارك الفنان البصريّ وصانع الأفلام الفلسطينيّ مؤيّد أبو أمّونة شذراتٍ من شظف الحياة المعلقة والنجاة المؤقتة في غزة إبّان الإبادة. ينقل بعضًا من مشاعر القلق والقهر والحزن والغضب والغربة الثقيلة، مسلمًا باستحالة احتواء الواقع ومضامينه بالصورة واللغة.

كتابة وتصوير مؤيّد أبو أمّونة Moayed AbuAmmouna
تحرير فاطمة فؤاد السمان

https://thepublicsource.org/ar/gaza-war-present-past

19/07/2024

[Photos of the Week] "Martyrs of 'Zionist Treachery'": Family, friends, and other mourners gather to mourn Amr, Fawziya, and Taghrid Dagher, three siblings killed by a July 15 Israeli strike on their home in Bint Jbeil. Hezbollah mourned Amr Jamil Dagher as a fighter, but all three siblings were better known in the community as well-liked shopkeepers.

Photos 3 & 4: Ghazi Dagher, brother of the three siblings killed on July 15, looks through the wreckage of their home, which the Israeli occupation forces completely destroyed. The occupation forces have killed over 500 people in Lebanon, including over 100 civilians, since the start of the war, according to The Public Source's count.

Bint Jbeil, Lebanon. July 16, 2024. (Zeina Hariri/The Public Source)

12/07/2024

[Photos of the Week] A sneak peak into an upcoming special feature that documents stories of survival and resistance.

"Inevitable Return": Mahmoud Hourani, whose parents fled Tarbikha, looks at his family papers. "I would often see my father sitting under a tree, tears in his eyes, reminiscing about the old days in Tarbikha and all that we've lost," he tells The Public Source.

Over a hundred years after Britain and France redrew the Lebanon-Palestine border lines and 76 years since the Nakba, which included the ethnic cleansing of dozens of villages that were once inside Lebanon, journalist Dana Hourany speaks to former residents of border villages that were stolen by colonial powers.

Adloun, Lebanon. March 16, 2024. (Rita Kabalan/The Public Source)

12/07/2024

[Editorial Fellowship] We are excited to announce the launch of a pilot Editorial Fellowship, designed to offer one editorial fellow the opportunity to gain hands-on experience, training, and mentorship in the worlds of long-form journalism, enterprise reporting, and narrative writing.

The ideal candidate is a tenacious mid-career journalist seeking to transition into editing roles or an experienced and creative editor looking to sharpen their editing skills.

This is a 6-month full-time (40 hours/week), paid fellowship based in Beirut, Lebanon, with a hybrid work schedule.

At the end of the program, the fellow will have the opportunity to join The Public Source as staff editor.

Apply today!

thepublicsource.org/join

05/07/2024

[Photos of the Week] "Palestine from Lebanon" Twenty-one communist and workers' parties from around the world hold a working group meeting in preparation for a broader congress of the parties next October to be hosted by the Lebanese Communist Party, which is celebrating its centennial next year.

At the meeting the parties issued a collective statement condemning "the genocidal war waged by the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and the criminal attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and against Lebanon and the peoples of the region" as well as US and NATO support for Israel.

Damour, Lebanon. June 29, 2024.

28/06/2024

[Photo of the Week] A map from the National Council for Scientific Research shows the latest available data on Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon since October 8, 2023.

Israeli occupation forces have conducted at least 5,800 attacks across multiple Lebanese regions since October 8, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, killing more than 450 people. Israel has destroyed more than 3,000 houses and damaged more than 12 million square meters of agricultural land, according to the Council for the South, and is threatening to further intensify and expand its attacks on Lebanon.

Beirut, Lebanon. June 26, 2024.

19/06/2024

كل مجزرة تذكّر بسابقاتها، وفي وعي كل فلسطيني فقدٌ أوّل نتيجةَ الاحتلال، يتدرّب بسببه على الحداد، ويحيل إليه كل موت جديد، متمرّسًا حفر القبور في الذاكرة.

في مقالتها المصوّرة، تزور حَنين عامل المدافن الفلسطينية في العاصمة اللبنانية لتروي شذرات من تاريخها عن لسان أهلها الذين تختلط في حكاياتهم قصص الحصار والدمار مفصحة عن نكبة مستمرة.

تحرير ساسين كوزلي.
تصوير حَنين عامل.

عن المقابر الفلسطينية الجماعية في بيروت.

18/06/2024

Every summer, when Lebanon’s taps run dry, truckers roll in and succeed where the state and its donors — for all their billions — have failed: they bring water to people’s taps.

In Part 2 of our 4-part series on water, journalists Christina Cavalcanti and Dana Hourany dive into the state's failure to provide tap water to much of Lebanon’s population, and how this essential public service and basic human right has effectively been privatized.

Written by Christina Cavalcanti & Dana Hourany.
Edited by Annia Ciezadlo & Paul Cochrane.

An insider's look at the truckers who bring you water when the Lebanese state fails.

14/06/2024

[Photos of the Week] “I’ll Answer Your Question With a Story”: Indian author Arundhati Roy speaks with Lebanese historian Fawwaz Traboulsi about writing from within and in solidarity with the revolutionary movements and people in India.

During the conversation at Barzakh Bookshop, Roy commented that people are continuously trying to redefine the job of the writer, by calling writers like her activists, simply because they write about things that matter to people. While policymakers spend a lifetime trying to develop a language that masks thought, “where every word [they] use means the opposite,” she said, “writers spend a lifetime trying to close the gap between language and thought.”

“That is what novels try and do; they create that universe and invite you to try and live in it, or make sense of it.”

Roy and Traboulsi also discussed India’s recent elections and her fear of India becoming the next Israel, the dangers of capitalism and neo-imperialism, and the whitewashing of Gandhi.

Following the conversation between the two writers, audience members raised questions about Roy’s position on Palestinian armed resistance. “I believe in what I call a diversity of resistance and I am one of the greatest admirers of how Palestinians have resisted this occupation,” she said in response.

Barzakh Bookshop, Hamra, Beirut. June 10, 2024.

10/06/2024

Think wild animals are dangerous? Think again.

Lebanon’s poachers kill these majestic creatures, then flaunt their “trophies” online.

Journalist Dana Hourany talks to the eco-warriors fighting back. They say humans are the real threat to wildlife and not the other way around.

Edited by Chloé Benoist, Lylla Younes, and Simon Assaf.
Photos by Marwan Tahtah.

https://thepublicsource.org/lebanon-ecological-warriors-wildlife

10/06/2024

Are we stuck in a time loop?

This , we revisit a haunting headline from 1987: a crisis-ridden Lebanon where most cannot afford basic necessities like food or medicine.

34 years later, the struggle feels eerily familiar.

Radical moments from history can fan today’s embers of popular dissent, igniting change — but only if we dust off the past and learn from it.

History is brimming with antidotes to despair, and that is its power. Radical moments from the past can fan today’s embers of popular dissent, but only if we dust the past off of these moments and bring them into the now.

07/06/2024

We are delighted to be partnering with the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) on the 10-year anniversary edition of the CIJ Logan Symposium to tackle the most pressing issues facing investigative journalism today.

Booking for the event will go live later in the summer.

For more information, contact: [email protected]

05/06/2024

Journalist Layla Yammine visited a rural village in northern Lebanon.

While there, a local man approached her and asked her to tell the world about his local community’s problems.

So Layla teamed up with Richard Salame to tell the story of Akkar’s wastewater projects that are seemingly wasting away.

Read Part 1 of our 4-part series on water in Lebanon where we take you from flush to crop to your tabbouleh.

https://thepublicsource.org/sewage-irrigation-water-akkar

31/05/2024

[Photos of the Week] Excerpt from "Sound and the Fury: Living With Noise Pollution in Beirut"

Nammour tells The Public Source that justice is not accessible to everyone. The residents of Mar Mikhael are facing people who have much more money than they do.

“Before Mar Mikhael got gentrified, it was an industrial sector of the city,” he explains. “Most of the families who used to work in those factories lived in that area. And this is why they cannot really afford a legal battle.”

Pierre, 61, lives in his old family house facing the Électricité Du Liban building in Mar Mikhael. “The house shakes because of the different noises,” he tells The Public Source while pointing to the cars from his balcony.

Guest post by contributing photojournalist Rita Kabalan.

24/05/2024

[Archival Photo of the Week] An Israeli military convoy in Nabatieh burns in late 1983 after reportedly opening fire on a crowd. In mid-October of that year Israeli forces fired on an Ashura commemoration in the southern city, wounding several civilians, according to the PFLP Bulletin, amid massive military and civilian resistance to the occupation ranging from guerrilla attacks to civilian barricades. In the face of determined resistance, Israel was forced to withdraw from most of Lebanon, besides the occupied Shebaa Farms, in May of the year 2000.

Credit: PFLP Bulletin, No. 69, 1983

22/05/2024

In the year 2000, following the liberation of most of south Lebanon on May 25, Soha Bechara wrote her memoir, “Resistance: My Life for Lebanon,” detailing evocative scenes from her childhood in Deir Mimas, her emerging political consciousness, activism, militantism, and detention in al-Khiam.

Ahead of Liberation Day, and in light of Israel’s bombardment of South Lebanon and its genocide in Gaza, we are sharing a republication of Chapter 7, “Preparations,” of Bechara’s memoir to honor those who struggled, perished, and languished in al-Khiam for liberation.

Their radical memory endures against all attempts of erasure.

For Liberation Day, we republish Chapter 7 “Preparations,” from the English edition, to honor those who struggled, perished, and languished in al-Khiam for liberation.

10/05/2024

[Photos of the Week] A destroyed home and vehicles in Alma el-Chaab on April 16, 2024. On April 16 Israeli warplanes conducted airstrikes on two houses in Alma el-Chaab, causing no casualties. The day before, the Israeli military fired artillery and white phosphorus shells in the area around the town, in addition to an airstrike. The Israeli military has struck Alma el-Chaab at least 175 times between October 10, 2023 and May 3, 2024, killing Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and an estimated five Hezbollah fighters, according to data from ACLED.

06/05/2024

This morning, Israeli military planes dropped leaflets over Rafah in southern Gaza, ordering the “immediate evacuation” of over 1 million Gazans to an “extended humanitarian zone” in al-Mawasi, warning them against moving north or towards the southern and eastern fences, or they would be “risking their lives.”

Palestinians in Rafah are in a state of panic and have nowhere to escape to; Rafah was once a designated “safe zone”, and now the Israeli military plans an assault.

Over the past 7 months, Israeli occupation forces have repeatedly used this tactic of designating “safe zones” for evacuation to forcibly displace Palestinians in Gaza, and then massacring them in these so-called “safe zones.”

In one notable case, on October 13, 2023, Israeli military planes dropped leaflets over northern Gaza, ordering Gazans to evacuate their homes and move south, or risk being killed. The military had designated Salah al-Din Street as a “safe route” for evacuation to the south.

But when convoys of displaced Palestinians traveled along Salah al-Din they were bombed anyway. And Israel denied responsibility for the attack. The NAWA Media team documents the chain of events of the Salah al-Din Street attacks in this investigation:

Civilians from the north of Gaza come under attack by Israel as they flee south.

03/05/2024

[Photos of the Week] Around 300 AUB students and community members rallied in support of Palestine as the global student movement against the Israeli genocide in Gaza spread from US college campuses to universities around the world, including Lebanon.

Students at AUB, LAU, and at least six other campuses held a day of action on Tuesday voicing support for Palestine and demanding their university administrations boycott companies and institutions that are complicit with the Israeli occupation. AUB students further called for full financial transparency.

“Stopping the genocide is a first step towards liberation, return, and decolonization,” reads a banner at AUB. Pro-Palestine protests on university campuses began on April 17, 2024 at Columbia University in New York, USA and have rapidly spread to more than 15 countries.

April 30, 2024.

01/05/2024

There is one workplace in Lebanon where sexualized violence is almost the norm.

In it, workers are exploited, harassed, and assaulted. To make matters worse, they have little to no recourse to justice.

In this Long Read, journalist Christina Cavalcanti looks at how overlapping systems of oppression normalize sexualized violence in this particular workplace & shares survivors’ calls for urgent action.

Edited by Chloé Benoist, Annia Ciezadlo, & Sintia Issa.
Illustration by Ghadi Ghosn.

Over two thirds of the 250,000 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon have experienced some form of sexual violence at least once during their time here.

30/04/2024

By silencing the calls for material support to the Palestinian resistance, the European left is facilitating and reinforcing the criminalization by Western institutions of the Palestinians’ right to armed struggle for liberation.

Today we have a duty to demand that genocide and ethnic cleansing cease, that systematic oppression and the Israeli colonial regime be disbanded. Yet we must also demand material and economic support for Palestinian resistance forces and their allies.

Written by Daniel Lobato Bellido.
Translated by Julia Choucair Vizoso.

By silencing the calls for material support to the Palestinian resistance, the European left is facilitating and reinforcing the criminalization by Western institutions of the Palestinians’ right to armed struggle for liberation.

24/04/2024

Most residents of Beirut’s neighborhoods are constantly subjected to the commotion of daily life, industry, and churning engines.

Noise pollution in the city, at four times the maximum standard level decibels, is not only unbearable but harmful to the health of the residents.

Experience snippets of daily life in Beirut in this multisensorial piece on noise pollution.

Reporting by Layla Yammine.
Photos by Rita Kabalan.
Sound design by Elham Haidar.

In the absence of people-centric urban planning and amid systematic neglect from the government, Beirut's residents are exposed to relentless noise pollution.

22/04/2024

This Earth Day, The Public Source looks into how the Israeli Occupation has been scorching and poisoning the lands of southern Lebanon using white phosphorus munitions.

This incendiary weapon harms crops, animals, and humans in the short-term and long-term causing possible irreversible damage. However, crops in the south are in themselves “resistant” and farmers have remained steadfast in their land.

This is one of the countless crimes of Israel in South Lebanon that, to this day, remains unpunished.

This (Dis)order Report sheds light on the damages incurred due to white phosphorus munitions, and how southerners resist despite the challenges.

Written by Dana Hourany and Yara El Murr.
Edited by Chloé Benoist.

Over the past six months, Israeli occupation forces’ attacks have burned acres of land, crops, and centennial trees in South Lebanon, costing farmers their livelihoods and potentially poisoning the land for years to come.

17/04/2024

This Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, we commemorate martyr Walid Daqqa’s life, resistance, and revolutionary spirit with a translation of his famous 2005 letter, “Parallel Time,” by Julia Choucair Vizoso.

Daqqa was a Palestinian revolutionary leader, thinker, and prolific writer who resisted against the Israeli settler colony from within its prisons for 38 years, until his assassination through severe medical negligence at the age of 62 on April 7, 2024.

Vizoso hopes Walid Daqqa’s words move you to refuse and resist the Israel-US genocide of the Palestinian people and destruction of Lebanon, wherever and however you can.

A translation of Palestinian political prisoner Walid Daqqa's 2005 letter "Parallel Time." Daqqa was assassinated through severe medical negligence in Israeli prisons on April 7, 2024.