I didn’t sleep last night. Not properly. I lay with my phone in my hand, watching in real time as the suburbs of Beirut were lit up like a horror film. A film I know every frame of, because it is my country of birth. Lebanon. My beautiful, battered, beloved Lebanon, whose people had spent weeks sleeping in tents on waterfronts, in displacement camps, in their cars, waiting, just waiting, for some mercy to find them.
And then mercy, briefly, flickered. On Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced a US-Iran ceasefire. He was explicit: it would apply “everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere.” Effective immediately. The displaced Lebanese sleeping in tents on Beirut’s waterfront started packing their belongings and families who had been sheltering for weeks began driving home.
Then Israel struck. More than 100 airstrikes rained down in 10 minutes on Beirut’s Corniche al Mazraa, one of the city’s busiest intersections– a mixed commercial and residential neighbourhood where people buy their groceries, sit at cafes, pick up their children from school.
According to the Associated Press, journalists on the ground saw charred bodies in vehicles and on the streets. Lebanon’s Civil Defence counted 254 killed and more than 1,165 wounded in a single day. And Israel’s explanation? Hezbollah was everywhere. Hezbollah was at the cafe. Hezbollah was walking the streets. Hezbollah, apparently, was everywhere which is a remarkable argument for bombing everywhere.
And then JD Vance spoke from Budapest, telling reporters it was a “legitimate misunderstanding.” Iran, he explained, simply thought Lebanon was included. It just wasn’t. The US never promised that. He was very sorry for any confusion.
A “misunderstanding”. Two hundred and fifty-four people are dead and it’s a “misunderstanding”.
The two most powerful nations in this conflict, the United States and Iran, negotiated a ceasefire document, with Pakistan as intermediary. Pakistan, whose Prime Minister publicly and explicitly said Lebanon was included. Iran, whose 10-point proposal, the very document Trump called “a workable basis on which to negotiate”, included an explicit point about stopping the war on all fronts, specifically naming Lebanon and Hezbollah. These are not fine-print footnotes. This is the document. And yet here we are, less than 24 hours in, with Israel reportedly absent from talks entirely regarding the strike on central Beirut, and the Vice President of the United States calling it a “misunderstanding”.
Was the ceasefire generated by AI and not fact-checked? Did someone forget to save the final version? Did they accidentally negotiate with an earlier draft?
Because this is not a misunderstanding. This is what happens when you negotiate a ceasefire with a non-party to the agreement standing behind you with a loaded aircraft fleet, and you sign, do a victory lap, and don’t iron out the detail that the one million people displaced, 1,500 already killed, and a country barely holding its infrastructure together might, just might, expect to be included.
Donald Trump told PBS this would “get taken care of” and described Israel’s continued bombing of Lebanese civilians as “a separate skirmish.” A “skirmish”. I have no words.
Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Chief called the carnage within hours of the ceasefire announcement “nothing short of horrific.” European leaders spoke up. Penny Wong condemned it. France called for it to stop. But no one with actual leverage over Israel seems to be listening, and no one who could pick up the phone and make it stop seems to want to.
And Iran, unsurprisingly, re-closed the Strait of Hormuz. All because someone couldn’t be bothered to write, or read, or communicate a document properly.
You know what, I’m going to say it: maybe put some women in the room.
Not as a joke. As a genuine strategic suggestion. Because we proofread. We check. We ask the clarifying question — “wait, are we clear that Lebanon is included?” — before 254 people die finding out the answer. We ensure that the person who will be affected by the document actually knows what’s in it before we announce victory. We don’t call mass civilian casualties a “skirmish” and move on.
Lebanon is a country of extraordinary people, from every religion and background Christian, Muslim, Druze, people of no faith crammed into a nation smaller than Tasmania, who have survived civil war, occupation, economic collapse, an explosion that destroyed their capital, and now this. They are not a “skirmish”. They are not a “misunderstanding”.
When Trump posted that “a whole civilization dies tonight” his ultimatum to Iran before the ceasefire deal, I wonder now if the warning was misdirected. Because the civilisation being erased from the map, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, school by school, apartment building by apartment building, is Lebanese.
America spent 24 hours doing a victory lap for a ceasefire that, it turns out, no one fully agreed to, no one fully read, and no one had the courage to enforce.