Beirut, Lebanon, 8 April – I am writing this with a heavy heart and trembling hands, still processing what my family, my team, and my country lived through today.
This morning, my daughter was sitting at her desk, headphones on, focused on an online exam. Then, without warning, the windows rattled and the sound of bombing tore through the air. Within seconds, her screen filled with the terrified faces of her classmates, students and teacher alike - some crying, some running, some frozen in shock, each of them feeling the strikes land near their homes. It broke my heart to see her dissolve into tears, terrified and disoriented, her world turned upside down in a matter of seconds.
What was happening was a massacre.
At least 254 civilians have been killed and 1,165 others wounded across Lebanon this day. The Israeli military carried out over 100 air strikes in just 10 minutes, hitting Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Saida, the South, and the Bekaa simultaneously, without warning. Beirut hospitals are inundated. In a country of fewer than five million people, 254 killed and over 1,165 injured in a single afternoon is catastrophic. These are families. These are defenceless kids and parents.
This took place just hours after a US-Iran ceasefire was announced, a moment of fragile hope that Israel immediately, deliberately shattered by declaring Lebanon excluded from any truce.
I am relieved to confirm that all Greenpeace MENA team members and their families are safe. We have been in contact with every colleague throughout the day.
However, I want to be honest with you: the threat has never felt closer. Strikes hit densely populated civilian neighbourhoods across Beirut, not just the southern suburbs, but central districts, coastal areas, and communities where our team members live. There is widespread panic, fear, and deep frustration across Lebanon tonight. The government has announced tomorrow, April 9th, as a national day of mourning.
Sadly, what we are seeing is the Gaza doctrine expanding to Lebanon: systematic, deliberate, and total destruction of civilian life and infrastructure, carried out with complete impunity.
Since March 2nd the Israeli military has killed over 1,500 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1.2 million people. Civilian infrastructure is being destroyed, and the Israeli government now occupies a large part of Southern Lebanon. And today, the single deadliest assault since this war began was carried out in the shadow of a ceasefire.
We fear, and we must say this plainly: this could be the beginning of another genocide in our region. After decades of Israeli occupation, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, settlement expansion, the genocide in Gaza, and now massacres and systematic destruction of Lebanon, all while the world watches in silence, the pattern is undeniable. International law is not being bent. It is being broken, openly, daily, with no consequences.
This impunity is the problem. And impunity will not end without action.
In the midst of this darkness, I want to take a moment to express my deep pride and gratitude that Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise ship is joining the Global Sumud Flotilla to provide logistical support. This is a powerful act of solidarity, a bold, visible statement that our movement stands with the people of this region who have endured decades of injustice and occupation. It matters enormously, and I am proud that Greenpeace has the courage to stand on the right side of history.
And yet, today more than ever, I believe these brave acts of solidarity, as vital and meaningful as they are, are not sufficient on their own. The scale of what is happening demands more.
We must demand world governments move from silent complicity or words of condemnation towards real accountability. They must hold the Israeli government accountable under international law, impose arms' embargoes and meaningful sanctions that create genuine political and economic consequences.
The people in Lebanon and the Middle East deserve an immediate and permanent ceasefire and a just peace grounded in international humanitarian law.
I hope this nightmare ends soon, but I know it will only end when governments of the world do more than watch from the sidelines.
Ghiwa Nakat is the executive director of Greenpeace Middle East North Africa. She lives in Beirut, Lebanon.
Greenpeace MENA is supporting the Lebanese Red Cross in their humanitarian effort.
