A generation in limbo

Lebanon’s young adults are now navigating yet another escalation.  This is not their first confrontation with conflict. But it is another one layered onto an already fragile foundation. Psychological reserves are thinner. And once again, sirens, missile alerts, and late-night news feeds are folded into daily life.

The result is a generation functioning publicly while privately stretched beyond its limit. This is what it looks like when a generation raised on instability faces another front: a strange coexistence of normal life and permanent anxiety. A generation living, and bracing, at the same time.

Rita: “We are positive anxious people at this point”

Rita, 24, sums up the surreal reality of growing up in Lebanon amid recurring crises: “I feel we got to a point where we're so used to it… but it’s so sad. Why do I want to be used to this?” Her day is a constant oscillation between normalcy and fear. “I’m anxious all day about what’s happening. Every little sound… if the door shakes… But at the same time, we’re still living normally.”

Even routine activities feel like contradictions. On her way to the gym, she observes streets bustling with life, instructors cheerful, classes full, shops open, yet the atmosphere feels eerily dead. “It feels dead… everyone’s living, but everyone’s like this. We are positive anxious people at this point,” she laughs, though the humor carries a heavy undertone of resignation.

Joe: “I feel guilty about being safe”

Joe, 26, describes the fatigue from watching explosions unfold in real time. “I wake up to go to work at 8 a.m., but I slept at 3 a.m. watching a split screen of my country being erased,” she says. “And I’m supposed to act fine.” Her war is experienced through notifications, livestreams, and constant updates, a digital front line that never closes. “I feel guilty about being safe,” she admits, “and helpless about not being able to help anyone. I’m exhausted from pretending everything is normal.”

For Lebanon’s youth, conflict is psychological and constant. They carry the weight of witnessing destruction while navigating deadlines, meetings, classes, and social obligations. They are expected to function, to show up, smile, perform while processing fear, guilt, and powerlessness in the background.

Ghenwa: “You ask me if I want to leave? No”

Ghenwa, 28, doesn’t hesitate when I ask her the question so many young Lebanese are quietly asking themselves: Do you want to leave?

“You ask me if I want to leave? No,” she says. “At this point, it feels like it’s part of who we are. We’ve been through all of this. We’re just ready for it to be done.” “I think the fact that we’ve had it so tough makes us really strong,” she adds. It is a complicated strength. Not loud. Not triumphant. But enduring. The kind that comes from surviving what should have broken you, and still choosing to stay.

Nadim: “I just want to leave”

Nadim thought the worst was behind him. When the 2024 war subsided, he told himself like many others that maybe this was it. Maybe the country had absorbed enough.  “I genuinely believed we were done,” he says. “After everything, I thought there had to be a limit.”

There was not. Now 23, he is tired. “I can’t handle the stress anymore,” he admits. “It’s not even the bombs. It’s the waiting. The not knowing. The constant feeling that something is about to happen.” He describes living in a permanent state of anticipation, phone always charged, passport always within reach, group chats constantly active with contingency plans. “I don’t want to be brave anymore,” he says. “I don’t want to be resilient. I just want stability.”

Ali: “I packed before anyone told me to”

Ali, 25, packed a bag before there were evacuation orders, before roads clogged, before statements were issued. “I didn’t want to repeat 2024,” he says. “Last time, we waited too long.”

He left his village and drove north to Tripoli, where distant relatives agreed to host him temporarily. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to leave my house because of war,” he says. “But it’s the first time I didn’t feel anything while doing it.” “I don’t know how many times you can keep relocating inside your own country before you start thinking about relocating outside of it,” he says quietly.

Gen Z and Lebanon’s endless war

Lebanon’s Generation Z is not reacting to war the way their parents did. They are suspended. Suspended between normal life and emergency. Between ambition and escape. Between staying and leaving. They go to work on three hours of sleep. They sit in lecture halls refreshing news feeds. They laugh about keeping windows open at night. They flinch at sudden sounds. They function, but they are not steady.

They are in limbo. Lost between a country they love and a future they cannot predict. Confused about whether resilience is strength or simply endurance stretched too far. And perhaps that is the tragedy of this moment: a generation that should be building its future is instead learning, once again, how to brace for impact.