RÉCIT – Archaeological sites, places of worship, villages or historical monuments have been damaged or destroyed by the war between Israel and Hezbollah. For specialists, it is also the memory of places and communities that is threatened.
On her screen, Joanna Farchakh-Bajjaly searches for places that no longer exist. The archaeologist, president of Biladi, a Lebanese association for the preservation of heritage, compares the latest satellite images of South Lebanon with archive photographs provided by its displaced inhabitants. Since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in the fall of 2023, bombings have transformed the landscape of South Lebanon to such an extent that it has sometimes become impossible to get our bearings.
Failing that, she telephones those she calls « érudits »these old villagers, last witnesses of a region struck by lightning, to whom she asks for example what “You love de gravitas” corresponds to the Roman sanctuary which, until three months ago, stood there. But even the old ones can’t do it. So they search their cell phones, open old albums miraculously preserved, look for a photograph of a wedding or a family meal to attest that here, in this life before the war…
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