and how's the fishing good fish here
obviously i can't film the checkpoints
disneyland disneyland yes
we're surrounded
would you mind asking ahmed what's for
dinner
it's very tense around here
so that right there is the border right
there
since the end of last year lebanon has
been paralyzed by a political and
economic crisis the people of this
country
are no strangers to destruction a quick
glimpse today going to be leaving beirut
here going to be heading
south to the border of lebanon
and israel obviously there's a lot of
political charge behind that statement
but
i'm just going to be going down around
the area meeting people
who live there uh meeting them just
asking them some
some basic questions also checking out
you know what the area is like
obviously there's a lot of attention
there i had to obtain a special
permit to be able to go down there
obviously it's a very uh heated topic
i'm not going to be going into the
details of the history or anything
uh if you want to know more about that
if you don't then uh feel free
to do your own research on the lebanese
and israeli war
i'm not going to be covering that side
i'm going to be meeting the people and
just seeing what they have to say down
there so
should be a nice drive along the coast
down the mediterranean sea
and hopefully we don't have any
complications uh getting into this area
because i know there's an extremely
heavy
military presence there
[Music]
after an hour or so driving from beirut
we have arrived
right next we're about 10 kilometers
from the israeli border
we had to go through some extremely
strict checkpoints
like i mentioned earlier we had to get a
permit no foreigners
are allowed in this region without a
pre-obtained permit
there's extremely heavy military
presence around here
there's u.n peacekeepers there's uh the
lebanese military
it's very very strict lots and lots of
weapons the whole of lebanon
even within cities has very strict
checkpoints everywhere you go there's a
very very strong military presence but
here
was was the strongest that i've seen so
we're gonna follow this road down it's
absolutely beautiful scenery
right right here on the mediterranean
sea behind me
nice climate a little bit humid it's so
it's quite an interesting atmosphere
because you have such beauty
but then such tension mixed in with that
beauty so we're going to follow this
road along here
there might be a checkpoint where they
block you uh apparently
sometimes they let you through sometimes
they don't but we're going to try and
get as far
as close to the to the israeli
palestine border as possible
you see the funds with the budget okay
so we've come down the
road a bit here got badir behind me here
uh we might talk to this fisherman in
just a second but have a look at this
sign
in front of me
the sign is basically saying uh no
civilians
uh beyond this point and it's from the
lebanese intelligence
so this is basically as far as you can
get for a normal person
before you uh you know you're pushing
your luck uh there's some uh
markers in the sea out there some
floating buoys uh
to uh mark the um the sea the sea
perimeters
so uh we're gonna go further even closer
to the border
you can see up here i'll show you
you can see in the distance there that
fence so that's the lebanese side of the
border there
and we're going to go further into some
more villages that are actually even
closer to the border and we're going to
you know meet some locals in some
villages some farmers and things and and
just see what it's like living here and
see what they've experienced because
this is one of the most tense borders in
the world so
there's a lot of history connected to it
but yeah it's quite intense to be here
right next to the
the fence here so we've met a local
fisherman here called uh
mahmoud and mahmoud
you live near here
entire okay and you come down here
uh to the border fishing often
afternoon right and how's the fishing
good fish here
yeah let's get the cash
oh wow
okay well we'll leave you to it have a
good day thank you for your time
obviously i can't film the checkpoints
coming through but they're
extremely heavy even once you show your
permit you get checked again and again
so we've just pulled over about five
minutes from the border there
and there's a group of locals here
hanging out outside a shop
so we're gonna meet them and find out
what it's like living here
okay so we're here with uh samir he's 56
years old actually
samir 56 and he's lived in this town his
whole life with the second
norman kalan yeah is it nice living here
carefully
[Applause]
yeah so it's okay so either they get
income from
agriculture or grocery places like this
samir do you feel safe and secure living
here
it depends it's not an easy life because
lebanon all all struggling and here this
is part of lebanon he's struggling as
well
so some days are some there are some ups
and downs
so grant for your time okay thank you
okay so we've made another man called uh
yusef who's uh samir's neighbor here
and how is it living here the life is
here is uh
would have been safe it's not so
difficult
north is safe so you you're reasonably
happy living here
you feel comfortable yeah this life
i am happy not happy that's where i live
up and dance yes and do you leave the
south and travel to other parts of
lebanon or mainly stay here
actually i lived before in europe
for 10 years but now i came before
one year to live wow where where in
europe did you live
i was in belgium belgium in brussels
approximately and you were working there
yes i worked what were you working i
work in tourists
like bottles in
disneyland disneyland yes wow
so why did you come back to lebanon
after living in belgium i miss my family
what are the main differences between
lebanon
and belgium it's a big difference it's a
big difference
finance shares things and
works some people they don't find work
here job security
is a little bit low it's been since
last year that the economy has really
gone down right
and so it must have been uh quite hard
for you to have seen
lebanon before you left and then when
you come back it's uh
yeah it's big difference lebanon before
10 years is better than now right
it's better than now now is
disaster disaster it's a big disaster
and how do you see the future
i don't know i don't have
i don't know any things about the future
i love my country lebanon
and i feel safe and i trust my country
will be those better and better and i
believe in my country i love my country
right i can see that you're a great
ambassador for your country thank you
for your time
all right thank you take care literally
but generally we use it like
cheers mate
what's up mate facebook page so it was
nice to meet youssef there and samir
we also went to a shop just salaam
alaikum
we also went to a shop just before and
they were telling me that they're never
quite sure
what today is going to bring if if war's
going to come but at the moment it's
safe
but he says it's kind of like living a
bit on the edge you can see the
the building behind me here has uh
bullet holes in it
and shells just in front of us here
just at the top of this hill here is the
border
there's definitely a bit of a tense
atmosphere in some places
the people are very welcoming and and
things like that but there is a
quite strict kind of atmosphere here
there's lots of barbed wire lots of
military blockades and it just
it feels a little bit uneasy at least
that's my my reading of it obviously the
people
are here because this is their home this
is where they've lived for generations
of family
salaam alaikum hello
so literally just as i was saying that
the people are super friendly and
welcoming a guy pulls over he didn't
want me to film him he said he was a bit
shy he said that he'd seen my videos but
he said
you know if we if i need anything what
can he do for us and he wanted to help
and he spoke really good english it's a
shame he didn't want to talk but i
understand it's not for everybody
anyway we're going to continue up the
road and see who else we can meet
so right there is the united nations
buffer zone
and you can see the buildings on the
other side in the townships
that's the other side of the border
[Music]
my
we're surrounded by lebanon
so that right there is the border right
there
here we are big wall
apparently this is reasonably newly
built
so here we are in lebanon and right
there
you can see tourist buses and
houses and streets and that's the the
other side of the border there
there's you in tanks and peacekeepers
everywhere on this side of the border
haven't seen any on the other side of
the border yet
it's very tense around here we just went
through a
checkpoint and then they pulled us over
to call our passports
uh lieutenant came over it's it's very
tense atmosphere
for obvious reasons so here is an
interesting point
so that is syria out that way
and then obviously lebanon over here
and then you have israel palestine
very very very tight security they
radioed forward and they said there was
a guy with a camera i can see
military presence everywhere this is a
very this is one of the
this is by far the most tense border
i've visited off the top of my head
so yeah we're gonna we're gonna keep
moving
okay so we've come down the hill a bit
here and there our refugee camps
all lining the road here uh just in
front of the border so
this is a syrian camp here we've met a
man called ahmed so we're gonna ask him
a couple questions
[Music]
uh so how long have you been living in
this house here
behind you seven years
seven years and uh are you working
just a little bit a little bit and what
do you do for work
when there is a chance we just do some
agriculture labor work
is there a good community here uh do you
all get along with your neighbors
is like close family his father and his
brothers and sisters are around and some
of the neighbors from
from the neighborhood back from aleppo
so achmed has invited us into his house
here
it's a friend
[Music]
secret
kitchen
would you mind asking ahmed what's for
dinner tonight
rice and potatoes and
and where do you get the rice and
potatoes from
that so basically
uh they're only drawing on the vouchers
from the new nhl
so they buy some food from from the
money of that
so the un helps out a lot of people here
oh so it depends it's occasionally it's
not like something monthly basis after
two or three months
every after two months it's nothing
consistent for these guys
either uh the vouchers which are not
on monthly basis or donations that come
from
ngos and this depends on the season
while maybe winter or ramadan or
but occasionally as well and if they've
got the chance to
to work a little bit so there's nothing
like
securing their food on a monthly basis
so you can see that example of a syrian
family there
um very hard-hitting you see that uh
ahmed and his family
came from aleppo seven years ago
they're still here in this kind of uh
neglected area while
all this tension's going on around us so
we're gonna leave this area now
there'll be a lot more checkpoints on
the way home it's gonna be a several
hour journey
uh i'm gonna finish the video here with
the uh
the border quite close i wanted to make
this video just to come and and meet
people around this area
it was quite hard to film it was it's a
very controlled like
i've shown you but uh we managed to meet
a few people at least and of course
again we met
many many nice friendly people nobody
that we met was
hostile towards us um you know the
military checkpoints yeah
they did you know ask us what's going on
and they were a bit
you know wondering the situation but you
know once it was cleared that we were
here and
and why we were here uh they they were
saying you know you're doing your duty
it's it's fine we understand it's just
it's just routine checks i hope what you
take away from this video
there's more that the people we met were
very welcoming
uh across all class levels
ethnicity they were very welcoming to us
very friendly
that's something that they all had in
common i know that's definitely what i'm
gonna take away
from today all right thank you for
watching
and uh in case i don't see you good
afternoon good evening and good night
you