Hamid Mir
The great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz composed his famous poem “A Song for the Name of Karbala in Beirut” at Cafe Younis on Hamra Street in Beirut. Faiz Ahmed Faiz lived in Beirut from 1979 to 1982. He was the editor of “Lotus,” a literary journal published in English, French, and Arabic, whose office was located on Hamra Street. At Cafe Younis, Faiz Ahmed Faiz would sit with his other exiled friends, Edward Said, Dr. Iqbal Ahmed, and Mahmoud Darwish, and recite their poems to each other. In 1982, Israel attacked Lebanon and when the Israeli army reached near Beirut, the dance of death began everywhere. Faiz Sahib was told that he would have to leave Beirut and move the Lotus office to Tunisia. At that time, Faiz Sahib had compared Beirut to Karbala and said that “This city has existed since time immemorial”. “This city is eternal”. “Beirut, the poet of the world”. “Beirut, the alternative garden of paradise”. Sitting in Cafe Younis, where Faiz Ahmed Faiz had said in 1982 that this city is eternal.
On a hot afternoon in June 2026, I was thinking that Beirut is indeed still standing and eternal, but Karbala is repeatedly created in this city. I saw this Karbala very closely in the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war, then I saw this Karbala in the 2024 war and now for the third time in 2026. I am looking at Karbala. In mid-June, a senior colleague of Geo News told me that Iran and the US are going to hold talks in Switzerland. You should go to Switzerland and talk to the capital from there. I told my respected colleague that the situation in Lebanon will be a major obstacle in the talks between Iran and the US, so I should go to Lebanon because Israel will sabotage the peace talks through Lebanon. On June 18, when I left Beirut airport, the first thing I heard was the sound of an Israeli drone. I wondered what Israel was going to do here. The next morning, June 19, I left with my cameraman Hamran Alexander for the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, which Israel had been raining fire on for three months but had stopped using firepower a few days ago under American pressure. According to local law, foreign journalists have to report their arrival to the Lebanese army office before entering war-torn areas. We stopped at a Lebanese army office near Nabatieh to register our details. It was 8 am and all the relevant people had been in the office since 7:30 am.
Only one officer had not arrived yet. He was the one who was supposed to issue us a permit. We started waiting for him. After 20 minutes, this officer came in a panic and told us that some time ago, Israel had targeted civilian cars and motorcycles on the road leading to Nabatieh. Bodies were scattered on the road, due to which the road was closed, so he was late. He gave us the permit but said that go back now and when the road opens, you will be able to go to Nabatieh. For the next three days, Israel tried hard to capture Nabatieh, but it did not succeed. On June 23, negotiations between Lebanon and Israel were to be held in the United States, so Israel reduced its attacks on Nabatieh. When the situation improved a bit, the road leading to Nabatieh was opened and I reached Nabatieh that same day. As soon as I entered Nabatieh, I realized that this was not Lebanon, but Gaza. Israel had turned Nabatieh into Lebanon’s Gaza, where the rubble of destroyed buildings and the stench of human corpses were everywhere.
I saw a similar disaster in Gaza in 2009. A local journalist, Rana Jouni, told me that there were many bodies under the rubble of the destroyed buildings in Nabatieh, and the work of removing them would begin today. Rana Jouni works for Al Jazeera. Despite the heavy Israeli bombing, she took refuge in the Lebanese Civil Defense office instead of leaving her city. Under the guidance of this brave woman, we entered the city of Nabatieh on June 23. Some of the mountainous areas of the city are under Israeli control, while Hezbollah resistance is still ongoing in some mountains. Rana Jouni was showing us the mountains of Ali al-Taher, behind which there were Israeli tanks and artillery. She was explaining to us the military importance of these mountains. During this time, Israel opened artillery fire towards Nabatieh, so we left Nabatieh towards Al-Sayyidah. Israel intends to occupy Nabatieh in any case because occupying Nabatieh means establishing control over all of southern Lebanon.
After a one-day break, Israel has resumed attacks on Nabatieh. If Israel succeeds in occupying Nabatieh, the negotiations between Iran and the United States will not be able to move forward. A sixty-day deadline has been set to end the fifty-year-old enmity between Iran and the United States. The question is, why has Iran conditioned the negotiations with the United States on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon? The reason is understandable because when Israel and the United States attacked Iran on February 28, Hezbollah opened a large front against Israel in southern Lebanon and fully supported Iran. Now that Iran has won this war, it cannot leave Hezbollah alone. If Iran has decided to be loyal to Hezbollah, will the United States be loyal to its old friend Israel or not?
This point is very important that Iranian public opinion stands firmly with Hezbollah, but American public opinion does not seem to stand with Israel but has turned against Israel. For the success of Iran-US negotiations, it is necessary to remove Israel from southern Lebanon, because another Gaza in Lebanon will become a huge threat to the US-Iranian negotiation process. This negotiation process is not limited to the relations of the two countries but has become a guarantee for the stability of the global economy. If Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon, Iran can also provide a guarantee to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel. Disarming Hezbollah is currently difficult, but after the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Lebanon, by preventing Hezbollah from attacking Israel, more cities in Lebanon can be prevented from becoming Gaza.
