It feels bizarre to “celebrate” Lebanon’s ceasefire with Israel, even though we have been waiting for it for so long. It came after one of the most intense nights of Israeli attacks this war has seen.
I was working late as a journalist at The National in the UAE on Tuesday night, monitoring for updates as the Lebanese and Israeli cabinets debated whether to go ahead with the ceasefire. I admit, I took the late shift selfishly, for my own peace of mind. I wanted to be able to call my family as soon as the news came through and tell them it was over, and that I was coming home to see them.
Instead, news of an Israeli strike on Noueiri, a densely populated neighbourhood in central Beirut, came in. According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, the strike hit a building that housed displaced families. At least seven people were killed.
The air strikes on Beirut suburbs came next: 20 attacks in less than two minutes. I was watching it all unfold on a screen. Images of a fire belt and large plumes of smoke in the Beirut skies – it felt dystopian, just like the past 65 days have.
The Israeli army’s spokesperson for Arab media shared eviction maps on X, marking areas that would be attacked that night, even as the ceasefire discussions continued. Maps like this have become a staple of the psychological warfare that has characterised this conflict. This time, they showed residential areas in central Beirut: Msaitbeh, Ras Beirut, Zqaq El Blat, Mazraa – all neighbourhoods I know by heart. My own neighbourhood, where my family still live, was included in the list.
I frantically called my mother. “Please leave the house now,” I begged her.
“Don’t worry, we’re far,” she responded, in the composed way mothers often do, even though we both knew it wasn’t true.
I spent the next 10 minutes zooming in and out of the maps, calculating the distance between the structures marked in red and my family home. Three minutes by car, six on foot ... Four minutes by car, nine on foot ... All around the targeted buildings were shops and streets I recognised. I know this bakery, this pharmacy, this pastry shop, I know, I know, I know …
With every refresh, I saw a residential building levelled to the ground
Less than an hour after the maps were released, the strikes began, including some that were unannounced. I called my family every five minutes to check they were safe, while scrolling through social media footage of other families fleeing on foot and seeking shelter at hospital entrances and universities.
It felt like I was standing right outside, close enough to watch the deaths and destruction unfold, but not close enough to help.
For the past two months, my phone has served as a peephole into this war. With every refresh, I saw a residential building levelled, a family wiped out or a town destroyed. Another refresh brought a post from a friend pinpointing their home in a razed building, another mourning their family and a third sharing memories from the town where they grew up.
In the blink of an eye in late September, I went from mindlessly scrolling and platform jumping to refreshing my feeds for any news on the safety of my loved ones with bated breath.
My family was one of hundreds forced to leave their home in the south on September 23, when Israel launched raids on dozens of towns and villages. They were stuck in traffic for more than 12 hours as bombs fell around them. I was texting my mother every five minutes on average, asking if they made it to safety and pleading with her to keep me updated.
Every single day since had been a nerve-racking cycle of monitoring the news until I fall asleep for a few hours before I wake up and grab my phone first thing with a pit in my stomach as I check the news again.
My greatest fears now included texting my family on WhatsApp and receiving only one tick, or calling them and not getting an immediate response.
I was a child in Lebanon when the 2006 war erupted, but this war has been different for my generation. This time I don’t hear the bombs, but I’m watching them drop on my country and, somehow, for me, it feels much more terrifying, knowing I’d rather be with my family.
I have watched on X as Israel has dropped dozens of bunker-buster bombs on the Beirut suburbs, rocking the capital and terrorising its residents. I have watched on Instagram as Israeli troops invade Lebanese homes in the south, vandalising properties and mocking their owners. It was on TikTok that I watched a famous Israeli journalist embedded with the army push a button that detonated an entire Lebanese village in the border area.
To say it is a surreal experience is an understatement. Even all of the words I have written here do not describe how it feels to watch the live-streamed destruction of so much of what I’ve known and loved.
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.
The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.
The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.
Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.
The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.
• Bloomberg
Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
TERMINAL HIGH ALTITUDE AREA DEFENCE (THAAD)
What is THAAD?
It is considered to be the US's most superior missile defence system.
Production:
It was created in 2008.
Speed:
THAAD missiles can travel at over Mach 8, so fast that it is hypersonic.
Abilities:
THAAD is designed to take out ballistic missiles as they are on their downward trajectory towards their target, otherwise known as the "terminal phase".
Purpose:
To protect high-value strategic sites, such as airfields or population centres.
Range:
THAAD can target projectiles inside and outside the Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 150 kilometres above the Earth's surface.
Creators:
Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.
UAE and THAAD:
In 2011, the UAE became the first country outside of the US to buy two THAAD missile defence systems. It then stationed them in 2016, becoming the first Gulf country to do so.
