Montreal’s Lebanese community reacts as violence rocks Lebanon

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“We’re furious and we’re scared and we’re terrified.”

Zahia El-Masri summed up the mood in Montreal’s Lebanese community over the phone Tuesday, one day after hundreds of Israeli airstrikes killed more than 550 people — Lebanon’s deadliest day since its 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

El-Masri, a Palestinian born in Lebanon, said she and other Montrealers forming Canada’s largest Lebanese community are worried for family and experiencing déjà vu as yet another conflict erupts in Lebanon.

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Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have steadily escalated since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and Hamas. Israel has responded with increasingly heavy airstrikes and the targeted killing of Hezbollah commanders.

Nearly a year of fighting had already displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border before the recent escalation.

Israel has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure its citizens can return to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will keep up its rocket attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, a scenario that appears increasingly remote. Two Canadians have been killed in Lebanon in this week’s attacks.

“We’ve seen it all before,” said Caroline Codsi, a Lebanese Montrealer and founder of Women in Governance, an organization certifying workplaces that achieve certain equity, diversity and inclusion goals.

Codsi moved to Montreal in 1979 with her family, fleeing conflict in Lebanon, but returned at the end of 1982, when she was 15. The year that followed ended up being one of the most violent in the Lebanese civil war. “Schools were closed; there was bombing every day.”

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Codsi moved to Paris at 17 and returned at 22 to Montreal, where she reunited with her family and has stayed ever since.

Memories of past conflicts affect many in Montreal’s Lebanese community. “If you hear a door slamming, it shakes you,” said Randa Ghossoub, a Montreal-based jazz vocalist who left Lebanon in 1989.

Ghossoub said an uncle in Lebanon has been hearing shelling near his home. “It’s quite worrisome and very stressful.”

“You’re just reliving the same trauma that you’ve been through before, and you’re thinking we’re going to go through the same thing again,” El-Masri said.

“I think I slept four hours last night,” Codsi said. “It’s just getting very real.”

While her immediate family is in Montreal, Codsi said the rest of her family is in Lebanon. “We talk all the time.”

Her cousin, Michel de Chadarevian, has been sending her updates and videos from Beirut, including a video of explosions he said he could see from his home. Reached by The Gazette Tuesday, de Chadarevian said a drone was hovering around his building.

But despite having friends and family in Montreal and elsewhere, he said he doesn’t have plans to leave. “It’s my country and in principle when my country is in danger, that’s where I’m most needed,” de Chadarevian said.

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Codsi said that sentiment is common among her friends and relatives in Lebanon. “They don’t want to leave.”

With family in Lebanon and the West Bank, El-Masri said she’s fearful for them all. She said she has a disabled cousin in Lebanon with cancer who is unable to leave her home.

“We’re all just feeling so useless and helpless because nobody can get to her,” El-Masri said. “How often can I call her and tell her, ‘Are you still alive?’”

Fear and anger over the violence in Lebanon has led many in the community to speak out. On Tuesday, Codsi took to LinkedIn, where she has close to 45,000 followers, writing that she has “no patience left for explanations that ignore the pain and suffering of innocent people.”

But she said posts like that can have consequences. Codsi has posted pleas for a ceasefire in Gaza throughout the Israel-Hamas war. “I got insults. I got people cutting me off their network,” she said. Codsi said she often gets messages of support from people who tell her they’re too afraid of consequences to speak out themselves.

Roger Karam, president of LIFE Montreal, an organization made up of Lebanese professionals in diaspora communities, said he also feels a need to speak out. He said such positions come with risks, but that he’s willing to take them.

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Tannous Chalhoub, who came to Canada four years ago to join his family, said he planned to participate in protests. “These are our parents, our loved ones, our friends,” he said. “We can’t be nonchalant about what’s happening.”

Members of the Lebanese community are supporting each other through tough times, Codsi said. “We’re on WhatsApp groups, we speak, we share videos, we meet up.”

With many trying to help loved ones in Lebanon, El-Masri said the Montreal community shares information with each other that could be of use. “A lot of people are going to social media to let people know that there are apartments available” in Lebanon that could house people fleeing violence.

El-Masri said she hopes everyone lends support. “Reach out to all the members of the Lebanese community that you know around you, because this is an extremely tough time.”

“We must not bring the Middle Eastern conflict into our society here in Canada,” Codsi said. “Kindness needs to prevail.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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