10/04/2026
Lebanon! A home to all people, united by a love for life.
It took us a whole day to realize what happened yesterday. A deep, heavy sorrow settled in our hearts. We were speechless, overwhelmed, and lost in disbelief.
Our families, friends, colleagues, and volunteers were all out there, each trying to support someone — a neighbor, a loved one, a stranger. Abu Shaker, a senior volunteer of CoL, together with his sons and the Sports City team, rushed to help. Yet all we could hear was a shocking silence in a world that suddenly felt broken.
Tarek, one of our project managers, was already responding to another crisis — pulling lifeless children from under the rubble. He called us in that moment, but he couldn’t speak. No words could capture what he was seeing.
Our WhatsApp groups turned into crisis hotlines. Colleagues in Tripoli, packing food parcels for Beirut, immediately turned back — only to arrive in the middle of devastation. Children crying under concrete. Families shattered. Homes gone.
This was not only Beirut. Over 110 locations were hit within minutes. Even a funeral in Bekaa was bombed — people mourning their loved ones were killed, and even the graveyard was destroyed. No place was spared. Not even the dead.
And while all of this was happening, we — together with our teams in the Netherlands — were trying to understand what was unfolding.
People often call me the connector, the communicator… but in that moment, I just wanted everything to stop.
Why are we letting this happen? Where is our humanity?
