Celou jednu stěnu galerie zabírá časosběrná datová vizualizace Beirut Urban Lab sledující urbicidu v Gaze, osadnické násilí na Západním břehu a eskalaci vojenských operací v Libanonu. 

Zatímco útlak Ujgurů není v tuzemském prostředí tak žhavou politickou otázkou, debata o válce v pásmu Gazy je plná kontroverzních a bouřlivých reakcí. A právě touto oblastí se zabývá tým Beirut Urban Lab z fakulty inženýrství a architektury na American University of Beirut. Analyzuje městskou infrastrukturu, vystavené dílo zahrnuje Gazu, Západní břeh, území Jižního Libanonu a severního Izraele (v daném pojetí jde o „okupovanou/historickou Palestinu“). Tým využívá jak tradiční metody výzkumu, tak i nové technologie pro dokumentaci zdevastovaných městských prostředí a pochopení toho, jak se lidé přizpůsobují nedostatku základních potřeb a služeb, jako je elektřina, voda a zdravotní péče.

As Israel’s assault on Lebanon intensifies, The Beirut Urban Lab at the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (MSFEA) has launched a series of critical and timely projects to map the scale and impact of the attack. These maps, which use data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project and local reports, do more than track military activity—they document the human cost of war, challenge misleading media narratives, and provide critical resources for those displaced by the violence. More than just data, these maps tell the story of resilience, solidarity, and an unwavering quest for justice.

Des quartiers entiers de la banlieue sud de Beyrouth avaient alors été rasés. Cette fois, le périmètre ciblé y est cinq fois supérieur à celui de 2006, selon le Beirut Urban Lab, un laboratoire de recherche multidisciplinaire de l'Université américaine de Beyrouth. Plus de 325 bâtiments ont été endommagés, dans une zone représentant plus de la moitié de la surface de Dahiyé, lit-on dans son dernier état des lieux provisoire.

Beirut Urban Lab estima que el punto álgido de la ofensiva israelí contra estos suburbios llegó en noviembre, cuando las tropas comandadas por Herzi Halevi lanzaron una media de diez bombardeos al día.

En Beirut Urban Lab consideran que la lluvia de metralla que cae durante los últimos meses en Dahie responde a una estrategia militar israelí que se acuñó en esos mismos suburbios en 2006, cuando Israel lanzó duros bombardeos contra la zona durante la guerra de entonces con Hezbollah. “Se trata de la Doctrina Dahie”, dicen en Beirut Urban Lab: “aniquilar la posibilidad de vida en la localidad y causar desplazamiento civil forzado y duradero”. Este grupo de investigación libanés considera que la situación en Dahie y en otros puntos del territorio libanés permite hablar de ‘urbicidio’, lo que se conoce como “la destrucción deliberada de edificios e infraestructura de modos que disrumpe el tejido social, económico y cultural, desplazando población y eliminando la memoria colectiva de un territorio”.

Beirut Urban Lab, has begun a pilot program, mapping the bombardment of Beirut and its suburbs.
"It will be a dynamic map to show that what is being destroyed is [not just] buildings but also a whole fabric of life."

Between October 8 and November 10, Israeli forces carried out 553 strikes inside Lebanon.
This was nearly five times the 113 strikes carried out inside Israel by forces in Lebanon, according to an analysis by Beirut Urban Lab, a research space based at the American University of Beirut.
Researchers used data collected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, an NGO specialising in conflict data collection.

As an urbanist who has lived her life in Lebanon and witnessed its multiple disasters that took the form of both “wars” and “reconstructions”, I want to offer a few pathways to consider through the lens of city planning.
To be sure, city planning isn’t a substitute for a wider process of national recovery that restores accountability and trust in public agencies and recovers democratic and transparent processes in the governance of a country ravaged by years of predatory rule.

«Dahiyé a d'une certaine façon incarné la success-story du modèle communautariste nourri par toutes les élites politiques libanaises, dont le Hezbollah est devenu au fil du temps la puissance dominant: il est celui qui a poussé le plus loin la logique de la construction de l'action publique en dehors de l'État», explique Mona Harb, auteur de plusieurs livres sur la banlieue sud. C'est là que le Hezbollah a déployé ses différentes institutions sociales, y compris des écoles et des hôpitaux, et diffusé des valeurs centrées sur une identité islamique pieuse, sur le modèle des modernités urbaines de plusieurs autres villes arabes, pour créer ce qu'il appelle «la société de la résistance», explique-t-elle.

This destruction has become a pattern. “For several weeks now, Israel has systematically targeted cultural heritage sites in Lebanon,” wrote Howayda al-Harithy, a professor of architecture and urban design at the American University of Beirut (AUB). “The physical destruction of buildings, monuments, and artefacts is just the surface of a deeper wound – an assault on collective memory and identity. Cultural heritage is central to a people’s sense of belonging and their connection to their land and history.” 

Peu de temps après, les bombardements reprennent. Ils se poursuivront pendant plusieurs semaines, provoquant la destruction de ces faubourgs déjà dévastés lors de la guerre de 2006, rappelle l’urbaniste Mona Fawaz, cofondatrice du Beirut Urban Lab à l’Université américaine de Beyrouth : « À l’époque, Israël, ayant échoué à défaire le Hezbollah, avait voulu raser le quartier symbolisant le plus la politique du parti, détruisant 220 immeubles à Haret Hreik. Cette fois, à la mi-octobre, les bombardements ont déjà causé des dommages irréparables sur au moins 312 immeubles, mais dans une zone beaucoup plus étendue. » Derrière les prétendues « frappes ciblées » d’Israël, il y a « une intention d’urbicide, provoquant des pertes matérielles et immatérielles, comme la mémoire collective des habitants », estime Mme Mona Harb, l’autre cofondatrice du Beirut Urban Lab.

Mona Harb, a professor at the American University of Beirut, said targeting civil defence centres is part of the Israeli strategy known as the Dahieh Doctrine, formulated during the previous war between Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. It involves the disproportionate use of force against civilian areas, with any Shiite-majority area such as the Bekaa Valley, perceived as a strongholds of Hezbollah, viewed as supposedly legitimate targets. “The civil defence is one of the most basic forms of infrastructure. Targeting it is a way to destroy livelihoods, force people to leave, and prevent them from returning, as it signals that there are no more red lines,” she said. “Israel is applying a strategy of annihilation, urbicide and destruction, in complete violation of the principles of international humanitarian law.”

“This is terrorising, not just disrupting life,” said Mona Harb, professor of urban studies at the American University of Beirut and research lead at the Beirut Urban Lab. “It is a terrorising act that is part of the psychological warfare that is waged on Lebanon.” Harb says that these orders destroy any sense of normalcy in people’s lives, as they never know when they might be ordered to leave. Notably, many orders come late at night, when people are sleeping. “It is very difficult to plan what you are going to do beyond the same day, even. You cannot project yourself in any horizon to the next day or the day after,” she added.

Yet, according to Mona Fawaz, a Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the American University of Beirut, “every post-disaster recovery has further weakened the institutions of the state”. In the wake of the 2006 war, the state played a subsidiary role to international actors and local organisations, says Fawaz. This phenomenon was repeated after the port explosion in 2020, when “we again saw public agencies retreat and NGOs take over reconstruction of the neighbourhoods”.

Mona Harb, professor of urban studies at the American University of Beirut and co-founder of the Beirut Urban Lab, also commented on the Nabatieh destruction: “The destruction of the Nabatieh souk was deliberate, with the intention of annihilating the city's economic structure and the collective memory of its inhabitants.” Mona added, “There were no military installations in the souks of Nabatieh that would legitimise these attacks. Yet, targeting the souk was not a mistake: the aim was to strike at the economic and socio-cultural fabric of southern Lebanon.”

“It’s this huge obliteration of the place and the people and its memories,” Mona Harb, professor of urban studies and politics at the American University of Beirut (AUB), told Al Jazeera. “It's tangible and intangible. But we’ve lost the intangible mostly, the practices and what people used to do in that place. It’s the destruction of what people hold in their memories,” she added.

« L’État n'a pas besoin de partis et d'institutions alternatives. Il faut que son pouvoir soit renforcé », commente Mona Fawaz, professeure d'urbanisme à l'Université américaine de Beyrouth (AUB), à propos du  numéro vert, rappelant à cet égard que le « Hezbollah a créé des structures parallèles » qui ont affaibli l’État. Et de mettre en garde contre les initiatives et discours qui « divisent », considérant par ailleurs que le quadrillage du quartier par des symboles comme les drapeaux partisans peuvent générer des tensions. « Les citoyens devraient tous se rassembler  autour du seul drapeau national, celui-ci étant le symbole d' un Liban pluraliste », dit encore la chercheuse, proche des mouvements de contestation.

 « Ils étaient probablement autour de 600 000 », assure Mona Fawaz, cofondatrice du Beirut Urban Lab à l’Université américaine de Beyrouth, précisant que « ces dernières années, ce que l’on qualifie de banlieue sud s’est étendu à de nouveaux quartiers comme Laylaki, Choueifate et Hadath ».
« Beaucoup de ses habitants se rendent à leur travail la journée et dorment dans leur voiture à l’écart la nuit », raconte Mona Fawaz. 
« Après la guerre de juillet 2006, l’absence de modification du cadre légal avait empêché les résidents de la banlieue de reconstruire leur maison légalement. Le Hezbollah a donc assuré leur reconstruction de façon illégale… avant d’obtenir une exception légale », rappelle Mona Fawaz. Et d’interroger : quand la guerre sera finie, « des acteurs indépendants voudront-ils s’engager auprès des habitants de la banlieue pour qu’ils puissent reconstruire leur maison, ou va-t-on encore leur signifier qu’ils ne peuvent être citoyens de ce pays et de cette ville que si le Hezbollah leur accorde une nouvelle exception? »

“About 320 buildings were destroyed in Beirut and its suburbs” in less than a month of war, Mona Fawaz of the Beirut Urban Lab said. The devastation has surpassed the damage caused by Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006, said Fawaz, who records cases of “urbicide,” the destruction of cities in conflict, focusing now on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. She accused Israel of “deliberate targeting of what allows life to continue,” including vital infrastructure unrelated to Hezbollah.

Mais l'ostracisation du Hezbollah et de ses partisans est une pente risquée dans un pays où l'identité communautaire redevient le marqueur unique du lien social. Israël sait provoquer nos peurs et nos divisions, déplore Mona Fawaz, professeur d'urbanisme à l'Université américaine de Beyrouth, qui y voit l'expression du venin israélien: le même que du temps de l'occupation du Sud, favorisant les uns au détriment des autres pour mieux contrôler l'ensemble».

"About 320 buildings were destroyed in Beirut and its suburbs" in less than a month of war, Mona Fawaz of the Beirut Urban Lab told AFP.The devastation has surpassed the damage caused by Israel's last war with Hezbollah in 2006, said Fawaz, who records cases of "urbicide", the destruction of cities in conflict, focusing now on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. She accused Israel of "deliberate targeting of what allows life to continue," including vital infrastructure unrelated to Hezbollah.

"About 320 buildings were destroyed in Beirut and its suburbs" in less than a month of war, Mona Fawaz of the Beirut Urban Lab told AFP.
The devastation has surpassed the damage caused by Israel's last war with Hezbollah in 2006, said Fawaz, who records cases of "urbicide", the destruction of cities in conflict, focusing now on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Mona Harb, a professor of urban studies and politics at the American University of Beirut, says the attacks on the Dahiyeh suburbs amount to urbicide — the deliberate destruction of a city and its identity, of the places where people once did all of life’s beautiful and mundane things. 

“A lot could have been done to prevent the current disaster incurred by the displaced we’re seeing,” said Mona Harb, the co-founder of Beirut Urban Lab and a professor of Urban Studies and Politics at the American University of Beirut. “In a normal scenario of a functioning state, we would have had emergency plans by the state to evacuate properly and shelter people.”

Mona Fawaz, a Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the American University of Beirut, told The New Arab that without a ceasefire it is impossible to evaluate how much damage has occurred and how long it will take for the country to recover. "What we can tell you is what everyone is seeing on the news: it's severe, and many of the so-called 'targeted hits' are in reality much more extensive than a 'target'", she said.

Populations across a far broader area of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley escaped unprecedented Israeli bombardments that seemed to be “targeting everyone,” Mona Fawaz, a professor at the American University of Beirut.

«Il n’y a aucun moyen de savoir si dans l’ensemble des bâtiments qu’Israël détruit se trouve réellement une personne “ciblée” ou non. Ce que nous savons, c’est que tout ce qu’ils appellent “cible” inclut des centaines de maisons privées détruites. Il s’agit d’immeubles résidentiels, dont certains – ou plusieurs – sont dotés de locaux commerciaux au rez-de-chaussée », souligne Mona Fawaz, professeure d’urbanisme à l’American University of Beirut (AUB). « Les Israéliens se sont surtout concentrés sur le cœur de Haret Hreik, le quartier qui abritait le QG du Hezbollah, mais là encore, il s’agit avant tout d’une zone résidentielle. C’est la zone qui a été détruite en 2006: quelque 220 immeubles résidentiels à plusieurs étages avaient été rasés et le Hezbollah les avait reconstruits après la guerre par l’intermédiaire de Waad, une agence privée qu’il avait créée à cet effet.»

Dans plusieurs tweets récents, la professeure en urbanisme et sciences politiques à l’AUB Mona Harb convoque la notion d’«urbicide » pour caractériser la destruction de la banlieue sud de Beyrouth. 

Some elderly people in the south haven’t heeded the Israeli warnings, either because they are physically unable or fear of the unknown keeps them in the small villages where they have spent their entire lives, said Mona Fawaz, a professor at the American University of Beirut who studies forced displacement. The places on Israel’s growing evacuation list indicate the military is “clearly targeting more than Hezbollah,” Fawaz said, adding that Tyre is a mixed city of Muslims and Christians. In a country with a history of sectarian conflict, “Israel is trying to play again the same Lebanese playbook — to divide people — and that’s what it did throughout its years of occupation of southern Lebanon,” she said.

Quoting Mona Fawaz's tweet: "#Beirut - The sea and sky are still as beautiful and the wind flows… but the city smells of sulfur and the background is loud with the sound of a buzzing drone. War is here, in every aspect of our lives-" 

[This article was reposted by Red Lake Nation News on September 30, 2024]

Citing Mona Fawaz's tweet: "Had the terrorist attack witnessed in Lebanon in the past 48hrs occurred in Europe, western media would be following victims, telling the story of a boy who lost an eye, a girl who lost her life... but these are only brown people, so they celebrate Israel's ingenuity. Repulsive."

« Je suis entrée dans le centre de recherche ; tous mes collègues avaient les yeux rivés sur les nouvelles, l’air horrifié. C’est là que nous nous sommes dit que nous ne pouvions pas simplement regarder : il fallait agir, et le faire du mieux possible », se rappelle Mona Fawaz, professeure d’urbanisme à l’Université américaine de Beyrouth (AUB) et cofondatrice du Beirut Urban Lab, un laboratoire de recherche interdisciplinaire créé en 2018 et spécialisé dans les questions d’urbanisme.

Výzkumné centrum Beirut Urban Lab představuje v Galerii Jaroslava Fragnera svou práci zaměřenou na dokumentaci a analýzu dopadů válečných konfliktů na městské prostředí. S jedním z autorů jsme hovořili o politice map či budování alternativních narativů.

In this episode, Mona Fawaz explains the critical role of urban planning and collective spaces in the rebuilding of war-torn areas. Drawing on her extensive expertise, she discusses how urban design can foster social cohesion, economic revitalization, and the preservation of a community.

In this short interview with Daraj media, Mona Fawaz explains the aspects of reconstruction and related legal problems after the ceasefire.

Nada AlTaher looks at the deepening displacement crisis in Lebanon and its impact on the future of the country and its people. She speaks to the head of the International Organisation for Migration in Lebanon, Mathieu Luciano, and Professor Mona Fawaz from the American University of Beirut.

In this short interview with Daraj Media, Mona Fawaz highlights the systematic destruction employed by Israel and its profound impact on Lebanese citizens. She notes that, over multiple waves of displacement throughout Lebanon’s history, Lebanese citizens have often managed to adapt to the villages they sought refuge in. However, she emphasizes that the situation is more difficult for those forcibly uprooted from their lands, as they have been severed from the places and objects that ground them in deeply rooted connections to their homeland.

In this short interview with Daraj Media, Mona Fawaz explains why this war differs from the 2006 conflict, as Israel's tactics focus on isolating residents from their villages and lands by destroying them. The scale of destruction means that returning to these areas would require years of reconstruction efforts. The devastation isn't limited to buildings; it extends to natural and historical landmarks, severing the ties between residents and their land while erasing their connection to their environment, history, and cultural heritage. 

In this special episode of 'This Is Not a Watermelon' podcast, we speak to Professor Mona Harb, co-founder of the Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut, to help us delve into the intricate socio-political dynamics and historical narratives of Beirut's southern suburbs, known as "Dahiyeh" that's been under severe Israeli bombardment since September. 

As Israel continues to target Hezbollah inside Lebanon and an internal refugee crisis unfolds as a result, Paula Newton speaks with Mona Fawaz, Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the American University of Beirut.

In this video report, Mona Fawaz discusses the context for Lebanon’s crisis, organizing to shelter and survive the bombing, and the Israeli messaging about evacuation orders and Hezbollah.