Lebanon’s nuns of Saint Jeanne Antide Thouret teach peace to 700 Christian and Shiite children amid Israeli bombings and growing fear in Beirut’s south.
Newsroom (11/03/2026 Gaudium Press) On the southern edge of Beirut, where the concrete high-rises of Dahye bear fresh scars from Israeli airstrikes, the voices of children once filled a modest schoolyard. For 57 years, the Sisters of Saint Jeanne Antide Thouret have run this small haven of coexistence — a school where 700 children, half Christian and half Shiite Muslim, learn not just mathematics and grammar, but the fragile art of living together.
Today, that same school stands silent. Dust from nearby blasts drifts over empty desks, and the laughter of students has given way to the steady rumble of war.
“Over a hundred families have had to flee, about twenty have had their homes destroyed,” the sisters report. “Fear and uncertainty about the future have wounded us deeply. The feeling that someone is close — that is our only sign of hope.”
A Mission Amid the Crossfire
For decades, the nuns’ mission here has been simple yet radical: teaching mutual understanding in a neighborhood long labeled a Hezbollah stronghold. Their classrooms, perched at the edge of Beirut’s southern suburbs, have endured cycles of conflict and brief respites of calm. But this latest bombardment has pushed their mission — and their community — to the brink.
“Day and night, explosions reverberate near us,” the sisters write from their convent. “This reality has profoundly disrupted the lives of our families and our students.”
The school’s principal, Sister Wafaa Racheed, recalled with quiet pride a moment from calmer days. During a visit a few months before the war intensified, she pointed to a first-grader with shy curls. “His name is Ali,” she said, “after the revered imam of Shiite Islam — but his middle name is Charbel, for the Maronite Christian saint who is Lebanon’s patron.” For Sister Wafaa, little Ali Charbel embodied the living spirit of their school: faiths intertwined, learning side by side against the odds.
Teaching Peace When the World Burns
Through collaboration with the Adiyan Foundation, which promotes interfaith understanding, the Sisters created programs where young Christians and Muslims reflect together on identity, empathy, and belonging. “We help them discover that others do not pose a threat,” they explained. “This is a message often contradicted by the world outside, even at home.”
Now, that world outside has collapsed into chaos. An internal survey conducted a week after the first bombings began found that at least 122 families from the school community had fled. Twenty-two of those families saw their homes either severely damaged or completely destroyed.
“Many children are living with relatives or in makeshift shelters,” the sisters write. “Some have no school supplies, not even proper clothing.” Internet outages have crippled online learning, and for many displaced students, education has simply stopped.
Yet the teachers continue reaching out — sending messages, lessons, and prayers — desperate to maintain a fragile connection. Each phone call or text, the sisters say, “is a gesture of stability in a time marked by fear, uncertainty, and displacement.”
The Invisible Wounds
Beyond the material loss, the sisters speak of what cannot be easily repaired. The invisible wounds — fear, trauma, and loss of trust — have hollowed out the spirit of childhood in Dahye. “Our children are anxious,” they write. “They fear the bombings, worry for their parents, and ask when they will return home.”
It is this psychological crisis, they note, that weighs most heavily on their mission. For them, teaching coexistence is not an abstract ideal; it is survival. In a place fractured by politics, religion, and war, they embody a message of hope — that empathy is stronger than ideology.
Holding on to Hope
Amid destruction, the Sisters of Saint Jeanne Antide Thouret remain firm in their vocation. “Even from afar,” they say, “the support people show us gives meaning to our struggle. It tells our children that they are not forgotten.”
Their convent walls may tremble under bombardment, but their faith in the dignity of human connection endures — quiet, persistent, and defiant in the face of fear.
“May God protect and bless you,” their message concludes. “Hope is fragile, yet still alive.”
- Raju Hasmukh with files from asianews.it
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