Sitting at their desks in the mixed-gender Tahwita public school in the Beirut suburb of Furn el Chebbak, Sibelle, Tia and Khaled were unaware that, on that morning, on Tuesday, November 12, the Israeli army had just issued an evacuation order for several neighborhoods in the capital's southern suburbs, located less than a 10-minute drive from their school. This meant that fighter jets would soon be tearing through the skies, and bombs would rain down on the designated areas, in which Israel's forces had claimed to be targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.

Everything was still calm. The young teenagers were savoring the joy of being back at school, having started class the previous day. "I'm back with my friends, my teachers, I'm close to them. I want to study. There's no stress here," said Sibelle El Zein, 13. Her home, where she lives with her grandmother, has been suffused with the anxiety of adults, the non-stop television, continually left on and showing a procession of macabre news stories and destruction broadcast live. School, on the other hand, has been a reference point of pre-war life, offering her a semblance of normality. Sibelle had had to leave Haret Hreik, a heavily bombed-out neighborhood in the southern suburbs. Her family didn't know whether their apartment was still in one piece.

The start of the fall school term in public schools, which are attended by children from poor households – those from the middle and wealthier classes are very often enrolled in private schools – had been delayed. The war had meant schools had been transformed into shelters for displaced people, who had fled regions that had come under fire from the Israeli offensive that was launched on September 23. By early November, over 200,000 Lebanese children had enrolled to continue their education in public schools.

'A safe area'

"We've started lessons again," said a delighted Tia Mchantaf, 13, who lives in Ain el-Remmaneh, a town in the Beirut region close to the southern suburbs. "At home, you hear the bombs, but it's safe. The war won't stop me from concentrating."

"I don't want to miss another school year," said 14-year-old Khaled Charafeddine, who had just come back from Akkar, a poor region in northern Lebanon, where he had fled with his family. Public schools had closed for a year and a half in 2020-2021, due to the Covid-19 epidemic, and online education was very chaotic.

You have 70.85% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.