Hours after two professors were killed in a bombing at Beirut’s Lebanese University on Thur, Habib Al-Badawi, professor of international relations, Japanese studies and history at the state-run university, told TOI in an email response that daily life on campus had been overtaken by anxiety. “We are watching our neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, our families displaced, and our futures suspended indefinitely,” Al-Badawi said. “The psychological toll on the Lebanese people is immense.” The professor said that he was still to come to terms with the death of two of his colleagues – Hussein Bazzi, director of the faculty of sciences at the south Beirut campus of the Lebanese University, and faculty member, Professor Mortada Srour – in the strike on the university campus. “Frankly, I am quite shaken. Our daily routines have become fraught with uncertainty. Simple tasks such as buying groceries, getting children to school or going to work now involve navigating checkpoints,” he said. “Even in these extraordinary circumstances, people are finding ways to support one another. We are navigating a dangerous moment, but we hope peace will prevail,” he said.
