Lebanese Australians reminded of past wars as Israel attacks Lebanon again

Israel’s latest military attack stirs up traumatic memories of Lebanon’s devastating civil war for Australia’s Lebanese community.

Melbourne, Australia – Israel’s devastating bombing of Lebanon has reverberated around the world, reaching as far as the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne.

In Sydney’s Bankstown neighbourhood and Coburg in Melbourne, where Australia’s vibrant Lebanese community is visible in the local shops, restaurants and places of worship, Israel’s latest war on Lebanon has ignited a new wave of trauma.

“I think 99 percent of the Lebanese in Australia still have family in Lebanon,” Michael Kheirallah, founder and chairman of the Victorian Lebanese Community Council, told Al Jazeera.

“That’s why the community are watching the news almost 24 hours,” he said.

“Some of them mentioned to me that they haven’t had sleep for almost two nights, especially when the bombing started happening in Beirut.”

Kheirallah said the images being transmitted from Lebanon by both news and social media were traumatising, as many community members had experienced civil war in their home country and the violence of previous Israeli invasions.

“I’m sure [the current attacks are] going to bring some bad memories. It’s very traumatising, especially now we’re living in a social media world,” he said.

While Lebanese people have been migrating to Australia since the 1800s, the Lebanese Civil War from 1975-1990 saw an influx, with many escaping the fighting which left about 150,000 dead and led a million people to leave the country.

Amid the turmoil, Israeli forces invaded and occupied southern Lebanon, first in 1978 and again in 1982, reaching as far as Beirut in the second invasion. That occupation would last until 2000 and is remembered for the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982, when the Israeli-allied Lebanese Forces – a Christian armed group – murdered more than 3,000 Palestinian civilians living in refugee camps in southern Beirut.

In 2006, Israel attacked again in response to the Hezbollah capturing of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others, bombing Beirut and conducting a monthlong ground incursion which left more than 1,100 Lebanese civilians and Hezbollah fighters dead, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

While not the largest migrant population – according to Australia’s 2021 census, about 250,000 Australians are of Lebanese heritage, with nearly 90,000 born in Lebanon – the community has planted deep roots in this nation of 26 million.

Lebanese who settled in Australia under refugee and humanitarian assistance programmes brought their culture and cuisine with them; freshly baked khobz (bread), deep-fried kibbie and sweet baklava have become mainstream Australian favourites.

Lebanese Australians have made their mark, too, including Bachar Houli – a star of the national sport, Australian rules football.

Both mosques and churches reflect the diversity of the Australian Lebanese community, and despite historical conflicts, Kheirallah told Al Jazeera “the community are united” as their homeland comes under attack once again.

“Just recently we had a big gathering here in Melbourne, which brought all sectors of the community together,” he said.

“We lit a candle for Lebanon, and for the Lebanese people who are now facing a very aggressive war towards their country.”

Evacuation flights

Israel’s latest war has forced more than 3,400 Australian citizens in Lebanon, permanent residents and family members to be evacuated from the country by the Australian government.

Ahmed* is a 23-year-old Australian citizen whose parents were born in Lebanon. His family returned to Beirut in 2013 to re-establish their roots; however, the recent conflict forced them to return to Melbourne on an evacuation flight.

“We got a call from the [Australian] government,” Ahmed recalled. “We packed ourselves up as quickly as possible and as lightly as possible, because we weren’t allowed a lot of luggage. And then we just headed to the airport next thing in the morning.”

Ahmed had recently completed a degree at the American University of Beirut and was planning to start a new job – then Israel started bombing. He soon found himself volunteering in Beirut to help the more than one million people who have been internally displaced as Israel intensified its attacks in recent months.

Ahmed told Al Jazeera that people had fled “their homes in a heartbeat” and he wanted to help “provide some relief to the displaced families”. He recalled the day when Israel detonated explosives hidden inside thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah members across the country.

“I just saw a guy fall down on the ground with blood covered all over his hip. People thought he was getting shot from a sniper above. And then after that, I started seeing ambulances coming,” Ahmed said.

“There was so much confusion, there was so much chaos. It was a very tough situation. That was the turning point. This was real,” he said.

With the violence escalating, his family were forced to make the difficult decision to leave their homeland and hastily return to Australia.

“Lebanese people are very resilient,” Ahmed said. “We’ve seen this again and again. We have somewhere to go, but others don’t, and so we’re very thankful.”

Spike in Islamophobia

While the Lebanese Australian community is diverse – with about 40 percent identifying as Muslim and 48 percent as Christian – there has been a reported rise in Islamophobic incidents since the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.

In the weeks following the raid, Islamophobia Register Australia reported that incidents of Islamophobia at Australian universities had increased 10-fold, and since then only continued to rise.

More than 3 percent of Australia’s population identifies as Muslim, from countries as diverse as Lebanon, Somalia, Turkey and Indonesia.

Adel Salman, chair of the Islamic Council of Victoria, told Al Jazeera that much of the Islamophobia “has some of the common tropes that are used in anti-Muslim hate”.

In particular, he told Al Jazeera a common theme was that Muslim Australians “are uncivilised and don’t share [Australian] values”.

Australia has a long history of Muslim migration and trade, including trade between Indigenous Australians and Indonesian Macassan people long before the arrival of Europeans, and the migration of Afghan people in the 1860s, who arrived as cameleers to help the exploration of Australia’s desert interior.

Yet despite a lengthy history in Australia, Islam is often considered to be contrary to Australian values.

Australian Federal Minister Pauline Hanson, from the right-wing political party One Nation, called for a ban on Muslim migration in 2017, publicly stating people need to “vaccinate ourselves against” Islam.

Australia is also home to a small Jewish population of about 90,000, who have reported a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.

To combat both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, the Australian government has appointed “special envoys” to manage the issue.

Despite these measures, Adel Salman told Al Jazeera the government’s predominantly pro-Israel stance has proved “alienating” to Australia’s Muslim community. Currently, the Australian government does not recognise a Palestinian state and says it is “strongly opposed to unfair targeting of Israel in the United Nations and other multilateral institutions”.

In 2018, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison even considered moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem, signalling a pro-Israel shift similar to that made by the United States under the Trump administration. And unlike countries such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, which have ceased some weapons trade with Israel, Australia continues to export weapons components to Israel such as those used in the construction of F-35 jets currently bombing both Gaza and Beirut.

“I think the government has lost a lot of support from the Muslim community because of their stance,” Salman told Al Jazeera.

“This may actually guide their voting preferences when it comes to the upcoming elections. The government really should take notice of this,” he said.

‘Lebanon cannot become the next Gaza’

The streets of Sydney and Melbourne have also played host to large pro-Palestinian protests. While the protests have centred on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the attacks on Lebanon have also come to the forefront of community action.

Those protests have been in the main peaceful and orderly, but the presence of Hezbollah flags and photographs of the organisation’s late leader – Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in an Israeli bombing attack in September – has caused controversy.

In Sydney, a 19-year-old woman was arrested and charged for carrying a Hezbollah flag, and while it was an isolated instance, it drew widespread media attention and condemnation from some sides of the Australian government.

Similar to the US, the Australian government has registered Hezbollah as a “proscribed terrorist organisation”; as such, public display of the Hezbollah flag or a photograph of Hassan Nasrallah may be considered a criminal offence under Australian law.

Michael Kheirallah of the Victorian Lebanese Community Council told Al Jazeera that while some may support Hezbollah, Australian law should still be followed.

“I think the authorities have dealt with this issue. I don’t think it will happen again. People in Australia have been protesting over one year, and we haven’t had any serious incidents,” he said.

Along with the evacuation flights from Lebanon, the Australian government has committed $94.5m in humanitarian assistance to support civilians affected by conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

Most recently, Australia also joined the US and 10 other countries in calling for an immediate 21-day ceasefire on the Israel-Lebanon border. A spokesperson from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told Al Jazeera the Australian government would continue to support the Lebanese community and provide aid to both Lebanon and Gaza.

“Lebanese civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating” Hezbollah, the department said in a statement.

“As the Foreign Minister [Penny Wong] has said, Lebanon cannot become the next Gaza,” the department added.

Yet for Lebanese Australians – and their families back home – a ceasefire cannot come fast enough.

*Ahmed is a pseudonym as the interviewee did not want their name revealed because of security concerns for family that remain in Lebanon.