War-weary Lebanese watch from sidelines as missiles fly in Israel-Iran conflict
by Naharnet Newsdesk 17 June 2025, 18:03
Since Israel launched a barrage of strikes on Iran last week and Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks against Israel, neighboring countries have been in the flight path.
Outside the scope
Downed missiles and drones have fallen in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, damaging houses, causing fires and reportedly killing one woman in Syria. But those countries have so far not been dragged directly into the conflict — which had killed at least 224 people in Iran and 24 in Israel as of Tuesday — and many in their war-weary populations are hoping it stays that way.
In Lebanon, which is still reeling from last year's war with Israel, videos making the rounds on social media have shown revelers dancing and drinking on rooftops while projectiles flash across the sky in the background.
Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk consultancy organization, happened to be visiting Lebanon when the conflict broke out and was attending a wedding when a parade of missiles began lighting up the sky as the DJ played ABBA's disco hit "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)". He posted a video of the scene that went viral.
"Certainly most in Lebanon and also Syria are very satisfied to be outside the scope of this," Maksad said.
In a park overlooking Damascus, 25-year-old Khaldoun Hallak has spent the past few evenings with his friends, drinking yerba mate, snacking on nuts, smoking hookah pipes and watching the sky for missiles streaking overhead.
"We've been through 14 years of war, and this is the first time Syria has nothing to do with it and we're just spectators," Hallak said.
No longer in the spotlight, a sense of relief
For some in the region, there is also measure of schadenfreude in watching the two sides exchange blows.
There's a Syrian expression that literally translates as, "The fang of a dog in the hide of a pig." It means that two people perceived as despicable are fighting with each other. The phrase has surfaced frequently on social media as Syrians express their feelings about the Israel-Iran conflict.
Watching from a park
Many Syrians resented Iran's heavy-handed intervention in support of former President Bashar Assad during the country's civil war, but are also angered by Israel's incursions and airstrikes in Syria since Assad's fall. The Sunni-majority Syrian population also widely sympathizes with the Palestinians, particularly with civilians killed and displaced by the ongoing war in Gaza.
"May God set the oppressors against each other," said Ahmad al-Hussein, 18, in Damascus, who was sitting in a park with friends waiting to see missiles pass overhead Monday night. "I hope it continues. We've been harmed by both of them."
Hallak echoed the sentiment.
"Every time we see a missile going up, we say, may God pour gasoline on this conflict," he said. "If one side is hit, we will be happy, and if the other side is hit, we will also be happy. We will only be upset if there is a reconciliation between them."
In Lebanon, where last year's Israel-Hezbollah war killed more than 4,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, and left destruction in wide swathes of the country's south and east and in Beirut's southern suburbs, some see retribution in the footage of destroyed buildings in Tel Aviv.
"Of course I am against the Israeli occupation, and Iran is an Islamic country standing up to it," said Hussein al-Walid, 34, a welder in the southern coastal city of Sidon.
Al-Walid shrugged off the possibility of a new war in Lebanon.
"The war is already present in Lebanon," he said. "Israel isn't abiding by the agreement and is striking every day."
Shouts of jubilation
Hassan Shreyf, a 26-year-old student from the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a strong base of support, said that after last year's war in Lebanon and the heavy losses suffered by the militant group, many of its supporters "were clearly anguished and didn't feel vindicated."
"So anything, even a window breaking in Tel Aviv, is (now) a victory for them," he said. Every time Iranian missiles pass overhead, he said, people in the area break out in shouts of jubilation.
At the same time, Chreif said, "there's always a silent group hugging the wall as we say in Arabic, treading carefully and praying we stay out of it."
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