Lebanese in Ireland on watching war from a distance

The Cedar Tree restaurant on St Andrew’s Street in Dublin may be almost 4,000km from Lebanon, but for the staff at this Lebanese restaurant and the wider Lebanese community in Ireland, the country is firmly on their minds day to day.

In recent weeks, Israel has launched a number of airstrikes on the coastal nation, killing over 1,000 people and leaving 600,000 displaced, according to the UN.

"It’s heartbreaking to watch," says Sereen Sarhan, restaurant manager at The Cedar Tree.

Her parents first moved to Ireland in the 1980s. Her father and her uncle opened The Cedar Tree restaurant in 1986.

After Sereen and her sister were born, her parents made the decision to move back to Lebanon to raise their two daughters.

The 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah forced them to return to Ireland.

"My grandparents’ generation had to go through this and then again, the next generation, which would be my parents, they had to go through this. I had to go through it in my generation. And now my little sister is going through it," she said.

First thing every morning they check in with their family in Lebanon. It has usually been a sleepless night for both the family here and in Lebanon.

Sereen’s aunt in Beirut does not even go to bed anymore.

"In the middle of the night she’d go to the balcony and watch and see all the burning and the smoke and debris flying everywhere," she said.

Her family from the south of the country have fled to be with the remainder of the family who live in Beirut.

Sereen is conscious that this is a position that not every Lebanese family is in.

"There’s a lot of people in Lebanon that have very little…so now they’re just stuck with nothing," she said.

The caretaker who was looking after their family home has fled to the north.

But his wife and son have had to flee further to Syria to seek medical treatment for his son who has got "really, really sick".

He found it difficult to find a safe shelter and is now staying at a school.

Like many other Lebanese, technology has allowed the Sarhan family to keep up with family and friends in Lebanon, but the other side of this is watching the war unfold online in almost real time.

"On my way to work, I see these heartbreaking things happening time and time again," including the current situation in Gaza. We are one of the same," Sereen said.

Some of the footage that is being sent back shows a stark contrast to how people last saw the places they once called home.

"There is no excuse to use this lethal force with civilians," a Lebanese man living and working in Ireland told me. He asked us not to share his name.

He showed us footage that a neighbour in Burj al-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut where he lived for 25 years, had sent him of buildings turned to rubble after an Israeli airstrike.

"There’s even a nursery, school somewhere around here," he said as he shows the footage of piles of rubble, smoke and the odd fire.

"There’s a bakery, grocery stores…it’s a residential street by definition," he said.

Before people started to leave the area a number of weeks ago, "it was always full of people".

Both say they would like to see Lebanese people able to come to Ireland under a similar scheme to that provided for Ukrainians at the start of the war with Russia in 2023.

"I know how many Irish people are serving and have served in the past in Lebanon," the man tells me and he hopes that this connection would encourage the Government to take action.

"I wish we’d be able to help them at least how they did for Ukraine, which I feel is a bit unfair just because they’re a different skin colour," Sereen said.

Sereen and her family hope to return to Lebanon next summer.

"The beautiful ocean…the mountains are huge…the greenery…it’s beautiful, I love it," she added.