How did Operation Al-Aqsa Flood change Lebanon’s youth?

BEIRUT — Oct. 7 started as a typical Saturday morning for Maya Dahnoun at her family’s house in Bchamoun, just outside Beirut.

The 25-year-old makeup artist said that first thing, she opened her phone to check Instagram stories from the night before.

“I was at a friend’s birthday party and I had really dressed up and had uploaded some really nice photos of myself and some fun videos from the party,” she recalls with a laugh.

When she opened Instagram, however, the first post to load on her feed was a video of a militant paragliding over a wall. Soon she joined her family in the living room.

“I’ll never forget my dad’s face. He was stunned into silence and he was glued to Al Mayadeen,” the pan-Arab TV news station.

Soon enough, she learned that Hamas shocked the world early that morning when its militants flew out of the besieged Gaza Strip and launched a surprise attack against Israel.

Israel has, since then, responded by bombarding Gaza relentlessly, killing more than 20,000 Palestinians and injuring more than 7,000.

Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Palestinian factions based in Lebanon also retaliated and struck towns in northern Israel, with Israeli forces responding by firing bombs and internationally banned white phosphorus on Lebanon.

More than 100 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, including three journalists, and around 55,000 people have been displaced from southern border towns, according to a report published by the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Watching it all unfold in real-time are Lebanon’s youth — the bloodshed stamped across their phone screens and parents’ TVs.

More than two months in, what mark has the war left in their psyche?

Sociologist Dr. Leila al-Ali, a researcher of sociology at the Ministry of Education, said that the events since Oct. 7 “brought a shift in attention towards Gaza and humanitarian concerns, notably on social media.”

“I study, and I’m in contact with teenagers and young people up to the age of 25 and I noticed that some were actively engaged, expressing themselves about the events, while others, although supportive of Palestine, were less involved initially."

That support only grew as the weeks wore on, Ali said.

Social media ‘generation’

Dahnoun was among those whose social media use skyrocketed; she estimates her daily screen time is now more than eight hours.

As a makeup artist, she was used to either promoting her work online or learning new makeup techniques. She mainly used TikTok and only followed a few news outlets on Instagram.

“This has changed since Oct.7. For the first few weeks of the war, I was glued to Plestia’s account on Instagram. She reminded me of myself. We even look a bit similar, she could have been me,” Dahnoun said. Plestia Alaqad is a young journalist from Gaza who has been documenting the war since it began on Oct. 7, primarily on her Instagram account, @byplestia, which has since then garnered millions of followers.

Ali said she’s noticed another group of Lebanese youth emerge since Oct. 7: those who “were previously disinterested in politics found themselves shocked into engagement after witnessing the events unfold on social media."

This exposure “significantly altered their perspective, making them more aware and passionate about the humanitarian situation in Gaza … they suddenly became more keen and likely on discussing issues."

Public relations specialist Eva Oueiss from Jounieh, said she has been keen on documenting the “Middle Eastern narrative" on social media to her network of non-Lebanese, and non-Arab friends.

“I felt responsible for contributing to raising awareness about what was really taking place inside Gaza,” to those who were raised to believe otherwise, she said.

Protesters near the French embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, issue calls for French President Emmanuel Macron and other members of the international community to take stronger action to protect Palestinian human rights. Oct. 31, 2023. (Credit: AFP)

Mostly, Oueiss has been using Instagram stories to share information about Palestine and the conflict since Oct. 7.

It’s a potent platform for youth like Oueiss. “We are talking about a generation that lives most of its life on social media platforms,” Ali explains. “And the genocide in Gaza is being heavily covered on social media.”

‘I was afraid of sharing pro-Palestine posts but now I don’t care’

Eighty-eight percent of Arab youth described Israel as an “enemy” or “somewhat of an enemy,” according to the findings of the 14th Annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey published in September 2022, which interviewed 3,400 young Arabs aged 18 to 24 in 17 countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

No recent studies on the shift in public opinion post-Oct. 7 have been published yet, though youth who spoke with L’Orient Today suggested even higher levels of opposition to Israel and support for Palestine since then.

“It’s really simple, occupiers and colonizers are the oppressors, in this case, Israel, and indigenous people have the right, according to international law, to use violence in their struggle for independence and self-domination,” said Hussain Charaffedine, 31-year-old Peace and Conflict studies student from Nabatieh.

Before Oct. 7, Charaffeddine believed that “violence could not be met with violence.”

“ I really believed that through peace negotiations, mediated by the international community, Palestinians could regain their right to an independent state.

“But after Israel’s actions the past few weeks, I think Palestinians have no choice but to take up arms against their remorseless occupiers.”

Dima Obeid, a physical therapist, said she too, has felt her support for Palestine increase.

Obeid describes herself as “addicted to consuming social media content.” But where she once used to spend an hour mindlessly scrolling through fashion TikToks each day, she now spends her time watching journalists on Instagram, following Gaza’s live coverage of the war.

Obeid has been trying for months to move to Germany to study, so she’d keep her social media posts before Oct. 7 “light and simple.”

“I had never in my life shared anything related to politics.

“I was always afraid of sharing pro-Palestine posts, in fear of getting rejected from a job or a possible visa, but now I don’t care, I want the world to know what’s happening.”

“I have many clients who don’t like Palestine or Palestinians,” adds Dahnoun, the makeup artist from Bchamoun. “But I don’t care if I lose them, I’ll keep sharing about Palestine.”

“This war is brutal, it’s a nightmare, I will keep sharing till it’s over.”

‘The coffin of international law’

“Gaza might be and probably is the coffin of international public law as we know it, if the perpetrators are not held accountable, the actual world order, UN, and international courts will lose all of their legitimacy,” said Vanessa Abou Jaoudeh, a 30-year-old lawyer from Beirut’s Achrafieh neighborhood. Abou Jaoudeh was an advocate for the Palestinian cause before the Al-Aqsa Flood, but didn’t dedicate her account to Palestine like now.

According to Ali, there was a clear shift in the aspirations of young people who once dreamed of going to the West. "They became disillusioned, realizing the stark contrast between the situation in Gaza and their perceptions of freedom and democracy in the West," said the sociologist.

For 18-year-old high school student Ahmad Hajj, going to New York University was always a childhood dream.

“I was super excited to go there in a few months to study mechanical engineering. My parents had me there [in New York], and studying at NYU is almost like a family tradition. My gut wrenches when I think of being in the US a few months later. Do I really want to be in the country that empowers genocide?” he told L’Orient Today at Beirut’s City Centre mall, where his family was shopping.

Hajj’s mother said she was “shocked” when her son said he was no longer interested in going to the US, despite speaking non-stop about it since he passed his ninth-grade official exams.

“His father and I want him to go to a top university, and he will, God willing, still be going to NYU in the fall. But I’m relieved my son is starting to see the world for what it is, it’s not all black and white,” she said.

The economic situation in Lebanon had once pushed many young people to search for opportunities abroad, Ali explained, “ I noticed a shift among youth now.”

“The glitter of the West is not shining as bright, in their eyes, anymore.”