Project preserves memories of how southern Lebanese villages once looked
Between rows of leaves and soil, Saber Serhan's father's hands overflow with vegetables.
"That's my father picking me'ta," he said.
"Me'ta's in the same family as the cucumber but longer and lighter in colour, and they'd go down there and there'd be fresh tomatoes, fresh me'ta."
He has been flicking through photographs of farmers, rooftops and fields, captured on a trip to his ancestral village of Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon in 2000.
Today, many of those scenes lie in rubble.
Saber Serhan captured photographs of farmers, rooftops and fields. (Supplied: Saber Serhan)
He has brought the images to an event in Parramatta, in Sydney's west, called The Villages We Carry.
People with southern Lebanese heritage were invited to bring photographs and videos of their ancestral villages, many of which have been damaged or destroyed by the Israeli military over the past six months.
A recent analysis by The New York Times found that 48 out of the 60 villages in occupied areas of southern Lebanon had been mostly levelled, including schools, mosques and businesses.
Many of the villages in southern Lebanon have been destroyed. (ABC News: Sean Tarek Goodwin)
The Israeli Defense Forces said they had been dismantling infrastructure used by the militant group Hezbollah to launch rockets towards northern Israel.
"In light of what's happening, I see that what I captured at the time with my film camera was a moment in time, and it's been preserved,"
Mr Serhan said.
Photographs 'help us reconnect'
The one-off event was part of the City of Parramatta's Western Terrace series of workshops in the PHIVE community space.
Zeinab Mahfoud is curator of The Villages We Carry project. (ABC News: Sean Tarek Goodwin)
Its curator, Zeinab Mahfoud, is working to create a digital archive of southern Lebanese communities which have been shattered by war and displacement.
"Since mass migration from southern Lebanon, we've lost that connection," Ms Mahfoud said.
"We've lost the connection to families, we've lost the connection to the land, and so these photographs not only take us there, but they help us reconnect."
Ms Mahfoud says the photos "help us reconnect". (ABC News: Sean Tarek Goodwin)
Amani Haydar has brought a photo of her uncle Hussam standing in front of his shop in the village of Aitaroun.
"I thought it would be a good one to bring around because it kind of captures a moment in time, and you can see him standing proudly in front of his shop, which unfortunately he's since lost," Ms Haydar said.
A photo of Amani Haydar's uncle, Hussam, in the village of Aitaroun. (ABC News: Sean Tarek Goodwin)
Little remains of that shop, except for her now-treasured photograph.
"Those places that we hold dear, those places that represent generations of memories, those places that we call home, are gone," she said.
"The most powerful thing that we can do right now is to hold on to that memory, to affirm that connection to those places and to tell the stories."
Like many Australians with southern Lebanese heritage, Ms Haydar has grieved the loss of loved ones from afar.
"This is about more than just nostalgia, it's about really honouring those losses, that deep sense of grief," she said.
"That's an important part of our healing as a community, and it's an important part of keeping what we do have for the next generation so that they can learn about it too."
Ms Haydar says the photos are about "honouring those losses". (ABC News: Sean Tarek Goodwin)
She said she had not lost hope that she could return to rebuild her community, and her uncle Hussam's shop.
"There is a great sense of hope that we will be able to return to our homelands at some point, and keeping that hope alive is really important."
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.