Cambridge
In early September I attended the British Red Cross summer school in international humanitarian law, which takes place every second year in Cambridge University’s Magdalene College. Attendees included aid workers, diplomats, government employees, and soldiers from various western militaries. It was held under Chatham House rules. I was the only journalist.
During the day, we listened to lectures on topics like the conduct of hostilities; treatment of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked; and persons deprived of their liberty. Between, we poured over case studies, debating the legality of behaviours by fictitious countries and their armies. It felt notably removed from the very real atrocities happening in the world right at that moment, and the crisis that international law is facing.
What happens when you have a state that commits war crimes again and again, yet other countries – the most powerful in the world – continue supplying them with weapons? It was clear from the course that international law only exists when there is a commitment to upholding it.
Lebanon
I didn’t know it when I was in Cambridge, but weeks later I would find myself at the hard end of what international humanitarian law was created for. I landed back in Beirut – where I live – on 23 September, the day Israel launched one of the most intense aerial campaigns in the history of contemporary warfare on Lebanon. More than one fifth of the country’s population has been displaced, and roughly 2,000 people killed already. One quarter of the country is under Israeli evacuation orders – threats, effectively, that anyone who fails to leave certain areas could be killed.
In that time, I have become a war reporter. I’ve gone to sleep to the sound of bombing and woken to the noise of drones. I’ve walked through the rubble after air strikes, spotting stuffed toys, university test papers and family photographs, even as Israel continues to claim it is only striking Hezbollah targets. In hospitals I’ve visited, medics have described piecing together the body parts of children ahead of burials. I’ve interviewed first responders who say they delay rescues because of so-called “double tap strikes”, generally deemed to be a war crime because they target civilians trying to help.
In Lebanon, unlike Israel, there are no air raid sirens or bomb shelters. There are often no warnings from Israeli forces. Instead, quick booms or lengthy, shuddering rumbles prompt us to cower before opening up social media, searching through tweets or WhatsApp groups to see what might have been hit.
I’ve walked through rubble after air strikes, spotting stuffed toys, uni test papers, family photos
Albania
War forces movement. Western countries are providing Israel with weapons, yet “there’s a willing disconnect” between this and “how huge amounts of individuals are fleeing those conflicts and trying to get into the EU,” Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, told me recently. Europe and the UK are hardening their borders, partly through deals with so-called “third countries”.
Between Cambridge and Lebanon in September, I visited Albania for the first time. I was invited to speak at the inaugural Freedom and Transformation Festival, curated by Lea Ypi, and arrived a few days early because I wanted to visit the migrant detention facilities that Italy is setting up on Albanian soil.
Last November, a five-year deal was signed between Italy’s far right government and Albania, with Albania reportedly agreeing that up to 3,000 people could stay there at a time, while their asylum claims were processed. The new arrivals were supposed to be people rescued or intercepted by the Italian navy in international waters, trying to cross the Central Mediterranean. In October, the first twelve people sent there were taken to Italy in the end, following a court ruling in Rome.
In Shëngjin, a coastal town in Albania, I visited the port that would receive those people, where I met port director Sandër Marashi. He said he had no concerns regarding the plan; he sees it as good that Albania is becoming involved in the EU’s “bigger problems”, which – in his mind – moves them closer to joining the EU itself. Ironically, the same port was used by Albanians who hijacked boats and sailed to Italy when their country was in crisis.
Marashi brought me to see the enclosed area inside the port where the new arrivals would be taken. Italian security forces stood at the gates; Marashi himself was not allowed to enter. “They treat that as a very special place,” he said, describing how he had attempted, and been barred, from bringing an Italian opposition MP there before.
Later, on Shëngjin’s beachfront, I spoke to another man, a 51-year-old who worked in construction. “I used to be a migrant as well, I went to Greece,” he explained. “I see this as a way of preventing people from going to Italy or Europe… It’s an agreement between Albania and Italy, our prime minister knows the details, I don’t.”
He said Albanian citizens won’t get any benefits, “but our prime minister will benefit politically.” In the meantime, “the only things [the new arrivals] will be able to see is the sky and each other, and I don’t think this is fair.”
Sally Hayden is a journalist and writer living in Beirut. Her award-winning book, “My Fourth Time, We Drowned” (HarperCollins) is about migration to Europe through Libya
