Every morning he sends messages to check if they're still alive
Em São Paulo, a guerra no sul do Líbano não é notícia distante — é telefonema da manhã, é sobrinho de vinte e dois anos que não existe mais, é casa demolida onde havia memória. O Brasil abriga a maior diáspora libanesa do mundo, cerca de oito milhões de pessoas, e para muitas delas o conflito entre Israel e o Hezbollah atravessa oceanos e fusos horários para pousar dentro de casa. O que se passa no Oriente Médio revela, uma vez mais, que as guerras modernas não têm fronteiras emocionais — elas habitam também as padarias de bairro e as salas de aula das universidades.
- Hussein Nahle perdeu o sobrinho Abas, de 22 anos, num ataque aéreo israelense à aldeia de Taybeh — não havia nada para identificar o corpo.
- Seus três irmãos foram deslocados e suas casas demolidas por soldados israelenses, dispersando a família por Brumana, Trípoli e o medo.
- A professora Safa Jubran não consegue se desconectar do ciclo de notícias desde o início dos ataques; sua concentração no trabalho — tradução literária do árabe — se fragmentou completamente.
- Em abril, uma mãe brasileira e seu filho de 11 anos foram mortos num bombardeio israelense no sul do Líbano, mesmo após o cessar-fogo anunciado em 16 de abril — o governo brasileiro foi criticado por reagir de forma tímida.
- O cessar-fogo foi prorrogado por mais 45 dias, mas os combates nunca cessaram de verdade, e a comunidade libanesa no Brasil aguarda em estado de angústia permanente.
Hussein Nahle trabalha atrás do balcão de sua pequena pastelaria no Perdizes, em São Paulo, mas sua atenção está a milhares de quilômetros dali. Seu sobrinho Abas tinha 22 anos quando um ataque aéreo israelense atingiu a aldeia de Taybeh, no sul do Líbano. O jovem visitava um amigo que se recusara a evacuar. O avião viu duas figuras e lançou sua carga. Não sobrou nada para identificar.
Taybeh foi esvaziada e arrasada. Os três irmãos de Hussein — Wafa, Wafik e Rafik — foram deslocados, suas casas demolidas por soldados israelenses que, segundo ele, levaram televisores e motocicletas antes de destruir os imóveis. Hussein vive no Brasil desde 1997, mas toda manhã acorda e envia mensagens para saber se estão vivos. Nem sempre as respostas trazem alívio.
O Brasil abriga a maior diáspora libanesa do mundo — cerca de oito milhões de pessoas entre imigrantes e descendentes. Para muitos, especialmente os que chegaram nas últimas décadas, o Líbano não é abstração: é família. Safa Jubran, professora da USP e uma das mais importantes tradutoras de árabe do país, repete o mesmo ritual matinal que Hussein. Desde o início dos ataques israelenses, ela não consegue se desligar das notícias. Seu trabalho — que exige concentração absoluta — se partiu.
A guerra chegou também aos brasileiros que vivem no Líbano, cerca de vinte mil pessoas. Em 26 de abril, um bombardeio israelense matou uma mãe brasileira e seu filho de 11 anos numa casa no sul do país — mesmo após o cessar-fogo anunciado dez dias antes. O pai e outro filho ficaram feridos. Safa lamenta que a resposta do governo brasileiro tenha sido tímida diante de uma tragédia que matou cidadãos brasileiros.
O Itamaraty classificou o ataque como mais uma violação inaceitável do cessar-fogo. Na prática, os combates nunca cessaram. O acordo foi prorrogado por mais 45 dias, mas não há caminho claro para o fim das hostilidades. Hussein tentou convencer os irmãos a virem para o Brasil. Eles recusaram — não queriam abandonar quem ficou, e trazer todos custaria mais do que pessoas que já perderam tudo podem pagar. Ele oferece um pastel de queijo recém-saído do forno e volta à sua vigília.
Hussein Nahle stands behind the counter of his small pastry shop in São Paulo's Perdizes neighborhood, his voice steady but his eyes distant as he describes what happened to his nephew. Abas was twenty-two years old when an Israeli airstrike hit the village of Taybeh in southern Lebanon. There was nothing left to identify, Hussein says. His nephew had been visiting a friend who refused to evacuate when the Israeli military ordered the area cleared. The village was nearly empty by then. The plane saw two figures and dropped its payload.
Taybeh, a predominantly Shiite village on the Israeli border, has been emptied and razed. Fifteen thousand residents were displaced, including the families of Hussein's three siblings. His sister Wafa, Abas's mother, fled to Brumana near Beirut. His brothers Wafik and Rafik found shelter with acquaintances in Tripoli to the north. Hussein has lived in Brazil since 1997, married to a Brazilian woman, but every morning when he wakes he sends messages to check on them. Not all the responses bring relief. He describes Israeli soldiers entering homes, taking what they could carry—televisions, motorcycles, small things—before demolishing the buildings.
Hussein's anguish is not singular. Brazil has absorbed more Lebanese immigrants than any other country in the world, waves of them arriving since the late nineteenth century. The Brazil-Lebanon Cultural Association estimates the community at roughly eight million people, including immigrants and their descendants. For many, especially those who arrived in recent decades, the ties to Lebanon remain close and active. What unfolds there is not abstract news footage or infographics. It is family.
Safa Jubran, a professor at the University of São Paulo and one of Brazil's most accomplished Arabic translators, performs the same morning ritual as Hussein. She immigrated in 1983, during one of the darkest years of Lebanon's civil war. Since the current wave of Israeli strikes began, she cannot disconnect from the news cycle. Her concentration at work—work that demands absolute focus—has fractured. She describes the impact on her relatives with clinical precision: families separated when Israel bombed the roads connecting southern cities, people without water or electricity, living in fear with no sense of what comes next.
The war has reached beyond those who remember Lebanon firsthand. Milton Hatoum, a seventy-three-year-old writer born in Manaus, recently told a radio interviewer that everything about the situation fills him with sadness. He received photographs of his cousin's house. There is nothing left. The feeling, he said, makes you want to cry.
The historical Lebanese diaspora created a reverse current: approximately twenty thousand Brazilians now live in Lebanon. On April twenty-sixth, that community suffered a direct blow. An Israeli bombardment killed a Brazilian mother and her eleven-year-old son. They had returned to a family home in the south after being ordered to evacuate. Despite the ceasefire announced on April sixteenth, the house was struck. The father, Lebanese, and another son were wounded. Safa Jubran says she wishes Brazil's government response had been clearer, firmer, more forceful. The position taken was timid given the gravity of events, she argues, especially considering that Brazilians died in the strikes.
The Brazilian foreign ministry issued a statement calling the attack another example of repeated and unacceptable violations of the ceasefire, violations that have already killed dozens of Lebanese civilians, including women and children, as well as a journalist and two French members of the UN interim force in Lebanon. On paper, a ceasefire has existed since April sixteenth. In practice, the fighting has never truly stopped. The offensive began when Hezbollah attacked Israel in support of Iran, which itself became a target of operations by Washington and Tel Aviv starting February twenty-eighth. The ceasefire was extended this past Friday for another forty-five days, but there is no clear path to an end of hostilities.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese community in Brazil waits in a state of constant unease. Safa describes it as a mixture of sadness, rage, indignation, and helplessness. Hussein tried to convince his siblings to come to Brazil, to start over. They refused. None of them wanted to leave their extended family behind. And bringing everyone would cost more than people who have already lost everything can afford to pay. He offers the reporter a cheese pastry fresh from the oven before returning to his vigil.
Notable Quotes
There was nothing left to identify, not even a finger, nothing.— Hussein Nahle, describing his nephew's death
The war impacted their lives drastically—families separated, without water or electricity, living in fear with no sense of what the future holds.— Safa Jubran, USP professor, on relatives in Lebanon
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What does it feel like to wake up every morning and immediately check on people you can't reach in person?
It's a kind of suspended anxiety. You're grateful for the message that comes back, but you're also aware that the situation could change in hours. Hussein sends those messages because he needs to know they're alive. That's the baseline now.
The source mentions that Hussein's siblings refused to leave. Why would they stay in a place that's being destroyed?
Because family is there. Extended family, community, the life they built. Displacement isn't just about moving your body to a safer place. It's about abandoning everything else. And for people who've already lost homes and possessions, the cost of bringing everyone out is impossible.
Safa Jubran is a prominent translator. How does a person in that position experience this conflict differently?
She's trained to understand language precisely, to see nuance. But that skill doesn't help when you're reading casualty reports about your own relatives. If anything, it makes it worse. She sees exactly what's being said and what's being left unsaid in official statements.
The story mentions a Brazilian mother and child killed in April. Why does that detail matter so much to the narrative?
Because it collapses the distance. These aren't just Lebanese people in a foreign conflict. They're Brazilians. Citizens. And the government's response was, according to Safa, insufficient. That gap between the scale of loss and the official reaction is part of what people feel—indignation on top of grief.
What does the ceasefire actually mean if fighting continues?
It means the war has a legal framework that's being violated constantly. It's supposed to create space for negotiation, for people to breathe. Instead, it's become another form of false hope. People check the news hoping the ceasefire holds. It doesn't. They check again tomorrow.