Fatima Al Bassam Covering my own story. No one teaches you how to be safe. As a journalist, they all expect you to be brave: but we’re also humans, and we’re scared

Rana Mar Elias, the Palestinian refugee camp

Raghed Waked

Ziad Sleiman Reconstructive plastic surgeon at Geitawi Hospital’s specialist burn unit, poses quickly surrounded by his colleagues on a typically busy working day. The unit has a capacity of nine beds, but has managed to increase to 25 to cope with the influx of patients injured by Israeli airstrikes, who have been coming and going since the beginning of the war. “Being the only specialist unit in the country equipped to deal with burns, for the past two months we have only dealt with serious cases. However, we have no space for every patient, and the hardest choice is to decide whom to take care of.”

Fadi Farran smokes shisha on the beach of Ramlet el-Baida, in the south of Beirut, echoed by the constant buzz of Israeli drones. For years he has worked as an employee in one of the beach resorts, but since the war reached Beirut, instead of holidaymakers, he has started to deal with the thousands of displaced people who have fled the south, having nowhere else to."Even if my work has changed, its purpose is similar: it is to give a moment of rest to those who have none. And these families have lost everything"

Philippe Safar hosts us on a journey back in time as he opens the doors of the barbershop, the Safar Salon, opened by his father in 1930 and whose reins he took over."The only thing I changed after my father’s death was to repaint everything blue, because that is how I see life: the blue of the sky and the sea of this city. What could be more beautiful and fulfilling?"

Hamza Abdelkader, 24, surrounded by art illustrations, books, musical instruments, in Sole Insight, the coffee shop he works in. In the background, his best friends and colleagues wonder about philosophical questions."We even gave the MK a mocking name, Umm Kamal, the mother of Kamal. When I wake up and its buzz is not there, for a moment I believe the war is over"

Antoine Kabbabe, 76, stands on the ruins of his childhood house in Gemmayze, Beirut, destroyed by the port blast that gutted the entire neighbourhood on August 4, 2020."My wife always scolds me: you live in the past. And I answer: that is true, I do, I live in the Seventies, in Lebanon’s golden age"

Abboudi Bou Jaoude stands fiercely smiling surrounded by his collection of posters, books, photographs, cassettes, vinyls and CDs, in his shop in Hamra."Beirut is always Beirut, despite many things having changed in time. But there’s always space for life"

Caroline Zbib, 37, makes an effort to smile in a makeshift kitchen in the Palestinian refugee camp of Mar Elias, in the center where she used to work as an art teacher, and now serves as a volunteer, cooking for the displaced people, of which she herself is part."I didn’t know I had something like surviving-mode clothes. Everything I wear now is one size larger, so that I am comfortable when I’m running away from bombings"

Lea Ghorayeb, 36, stands surrounded by almost 200 women from Sierra Leone working as migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, who have been abandoned by their sponsors and displaced by the ongoing war. She has been dedicating all her time to help this community, volunteering at The Shelter, the once-exhibition salon transformed into a temporary refuge. "My activism is about standing by my community, reclaiming hope, and refusing to let despair define us. Through it all, the women arrived at The Shelter feeling scared and broken, but they left with smiles, a renewed sense of dignity, and the tools to move forward. That transformation remains one of my greatest joys"

Sami Bikhazi enjoys a ray of sunlight looking out of the window of her restaurant in bustling Ras Beirut, waiting for customers to come in."I opened this restaurant out of fun and love for my neighbours. Today, I offer a space of comfort to anyone who needs a warm meal, and someone to talk to"

Jamil Qasim in the middle of Beirut’s busy flea market, the Souq El-Ahad, where war is but a mirage, and life seems to proceed undisturbed."Art belongs to the people. I come here to the market to help make it available to most, at a low price. You wouldn’t believe how many customers are interested in art and literature books, despite the hard times we are facing"

Aya stands under the warm chandelier’s light of Kalei, the roastery of Ras Beirut housed in a late-1800s heritage home that she works in, and where she found a community she considers her second home."The only difference is that instead of ‘how are you’ we began asking each other ‘are you okay’. But the perseverance of our community is real, people around us give a sense of living by simply staying"