Opinion: The trauma of watching from afar

The following is an excerpt from an op-ed by Lina Mounzer.

I’m having my morning coffee in Montreal when I receive the news.

My friend Rami forwards a WhatsApp message. In Arabic, it reads: “Ouzai, Ghobeiri, Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Saida, pagers are exploding. A breach. They’ve hacked into devices and phones and exploded them. Lots of contradictory information. Some 500 explosions so far.”

In Beirut, it’s just after 3:40 pm.

There is no need to ask who “they” are. It is the same “they” who have been decimating and starving the Palestinians of Gaza for almost an entire year now, who have bombed hospitals and refugee camps, who have raped prisoners and then, when chastised, rioted for the right to rape prisoners.

The “they” who are on trial at the International Court of Justice for the crime of crimes, genocide, and who have otherwise breached, on camera, any number of the so-called red lines of international humanitarian law.

After all of that, I shouldn’t be surprised at anything “they” might be capable of, nor how the world will excuse it.

Still, I start receiving videos and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. CCTV footage from grocery stores, with explosions going off at people’s waists or in their hands. Streets crowded with ambulances and shouting people. Men on gurneys, the shredded leftovers of their hands gushing blood.

The most absurd thing is how no western headline called this textbook act of mass terrorism by its name.

What is this dystopian nightmare? How did they hack into people’s devices? And what devices are vulnerable?

I try to remember where I bought my phone. Was it from a cellphone place in Beirut, the kind where explosions are now going off as the merchandise ignites? Or did I order it directly from abroad? Is it safe or suspect?

No matter: I have to pick up my phone, this potential murder weapon, to reach my friends and family, to make sure they’re OK, forcing them to pick up a potential murder weapon to answer.

To read the full op-ed, click below.

Israel's war on Lebanon: The trauma of watching the 'Hollywood movie' from afar