She Has Left Six Times… and Still Hopes to Return
“I hope next time we meet; it will be in my home… and I will offer you coffee.” Hanneh says this with a gentle smile, one that carries both warmth and longing. She is a grandmother, a woman who has lived long enough to know that home is not just a place, but a feeling you carry even when everything else is left behind. She is over 80 years old. And in her lifetime, this is the sixth time she has been forced to leave her home, in search of safety away from the land she calls her own.
For the past two years and three months, Hanneh has been living in a collective shelter in Mount Lebanon, far from her home in the South. She is not newly displaced by the current escalation. She has been waiting, like around 90,000 other people who remain displaced from previous hostilities, still unable to return. “Nothing is more precious than one’s home and land,” she says quietly. “And I miss it every day.”
During a brief cessation of hostilities, she returned to see what was left of her house. “It’s gone,” she says. No walls. No memories to hold on to. Just absence. Before reaching the shelter, nights were filled with fear. “The bombing… the sound of planes… we couldn’t sleep,” she recalls. “We were afraid for the children.” Now, in the shelter, there is safety. There are people who welcome her with kindness. Food, medicine, and small acts of care that make the days a little easier. But safety does not erase what was lost.
Her grandchildren are with her, a boy and a girl, 14 and 16 years old. “They are the light of my eyes,” she says. They are what keeps her going. Still, the needs remain. Winter settles in. “It’s very cold… the rain comes in through the roof,” Hanneh explains. “We need clothes, blankets… and medicine.”
Yet even after everything she has lived through, Hanneh does not speak with anger. She speaks with patience. With quiet hope. “Pray for us,” she says. “Help us return to our homes. These hostilities are difficult… no one deserves to live in fear.” And then, almost as if holding on to something fragile but unbreakable, she adds, “I hope next time we meet, it will be in my home… and I will offer you coffee.”
Because for Hanneh, like for so many families across Lebanon today, displacement is not only about losing a house. It is about losing a place that held a lifetime and still finding a way to hold on to hope.
Hanneh’s story is not unique. Across Lebanon, World Vision Lebanon teams are on the ground every day, standing alongside families who have been forced to leave everything behind. So far, the response has reached over 142,000 people, including more than 49,000 children, in collective shelters and communities across the country.
Support comes in many forms. Hot meals shared in moments of uncertainty. Blankets and mattresses that offer a little warmth against the cold. Hygiene kits and winter clothing that help families get through each day with dignity. And for children, small spaces where they can simply be children again.