Easter Sunday brought no ceasefire to Lebanon. As Israeli shells killed at least 11 people, the voices of women and children kneading Easter bread rose defiantly beneath the bombardment. Bells rang, and one phrase echoed: "Christ is risen, truly He is risen."
By Easter Sunday, Lebanon's Health Ministry had reported 1,461 killed and 4,430 wounded, including 129 children and 54 healthcare workers.
More than 1.1 million people, roughly a fifth of the population, have been displaced from the south and Beirut's southern suburb.
Across their southern border villages, Christians celebrated Easter under fire. Their rites, like their land, were under siege.
"Our hearts bleed for the victims of the conflict imposed on Lebanon," said Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai in his Easter homily.
Lebanon's Maronites are an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with Rome, named after the fourth-century Syrian monk Saint Maron, who made Lebanon their home for over a millennium.
Today, Christians make up an estimated 30% of Lebanon's population , roughly two million people, down from 58.7% in 1932, as Christians across the Middle East have fallen from 20% to barely 5% over the past century. Lebanon is nonetheless home to over 2,400 churches and the largest Christian population in the Arab region.
"Israel's aim to establish a buffer zone south of the Litani River through a scorched earth policy deepens Christians' fears in Southern Lebanon of either a prolonged inability to return, or going back to villages left in ruin," historian Imad Mrad told The New Arab. Rmeish raising chants for resilience In Rmeish , a southern Lebanese village with a population of around 6,500, the midnight mass on Saturday was cancelled and only the Sunday morning Easter service was held. But these were practical adjustments, the parish priest , Father Najib Al-Amil, told The New Arab: "The heart of the celebration remains intact."
The priest recalled standing at the altar when the war began in 2023, addressing his congregation with the lyrics of a hymn .
"My soul, do not be afraid, my soul, do not be troubled, whoever has Jesus has everything," he recalled.
This Easter, he evoked the same hymn.
"We are relying on Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and they will protect us," he said, adding that Easter this year gave renewed meaning to the longing for peace, "because our hearts are in pain."
Tony Nasrallah, a chef from Rmeish, recounted how women came together to prepare four kilogrammes of ma'amoul, traditional shortbread pastries filled with nuts or dates, for the village children.
"We try to hold onto the minimum of our traditions, whatever brings our little ones happiness, whatever puts a smile on their faces," he told The New Arab. Boulos Choufani, who runs a sweets shop in Rmeish, produced less than half of his usual 250 kilogrammes of Easter sweets.
"What matters to me is preserving our customs," he told The New Arab . "I have three daughters studying at universities in Beirut, but I am deprived of seeing them. Rmeish today is empty of its young people. In past Easters, the village was full of life." Insistence on ritual The scent of ma'amoul and ka'ak, the traditional cookies baked on Holy Thursday in preparation for Easter, wafted through kitchens across the village.
The freshly baked dough and hint of orange blossom water drifted through Kawkaba, a predominantly Christian village 105 kilometres south of Beirut, meandering from house to house beneath the percussion of shells and rockets.
From her nine-metre statue on the hill , Our Lady of Hermon looked out over a village that refused to leave.
"Each day is worse than the one before," Elie Abou Nakoul, mayor of Kawkaba, told The New Arab . But the decision to stay was unquestionable. "Here is our land, our homes, and the graves of our families. We will not leave them."
For many residents, that resolve ran just as deep. "I will not abandon the olive trees here, and I will not abandon my land," Eli Jean Nakoul, a local resident, told The New Arab . He was clear-eyed about the cost of this decision. "Leaving this time might mean never coming back."
At his home, the women baked around eight kilogrammes of ma'amoul, determined to produce the Easter sweets. And they were no exception. Across thousands of homes that survived the shelling, women kept kneading and decorating the eggs.
The foods carry the weight of the season. The dough, rich and fragrant, is said to symbolise abundance and divine grace. The ma'amoul is laden with meaning : its pyramid shape evokes the tomb in which Christ was laid, while its round, crown-shaped form recalls the crown of thorns. The Easter egg , its shell representing the sealed tomb and breaking it, the moment of resurrection, was set on tables across the south.
Together, these symbols speak of the sweetness of redemption and the passage from death to life, a meaning these villagers longed for in real time.
But in Debl village, the traditions bent further under the weight of the war.
The baking of ka'ak was set aside as an unaffordable luxury. "The basic ingredients are simply not available," Gladys Younes, a 44-year-old mother of four and municipal council member, told The New Arab .
"And even if they were, we need to preserve them to feed the children. Even the home decorations are absent. There is great sorrow today."
Yet she still believes that "after darkness comes light."
Last week, in Debl, Israeli forces bombed 11 houses on the village's outskirts, but the tragedy has not shaken their resolve.
"We are staying, no matter how much they blow up," Robert Zeini, a member of Debl's municipal council, said to The New Arab . "We will not leave. We will not allow our land to become scorched earth." The cost of staying Church bells rang out, and hymns filled St. George's Church in Qulayaa, southern Lebanon, as worshippers gathered to mark Easter Sunday beneath a portrait of Father Pierre al-Rahi of Al-Qulayaa, who was killed on 9 March when an Israeli Merkava tank shelled a home he had rushed to after it was first struck. But families in Al-Qulayaa refused to leave. "We are paying the price of staying," Mayor Hanna Daher of Al-Qulayaa told The New Arab. Pope Leo XIV responded to the killing of Father Pierre with prayers, asking that his blood be "a seed of peace for beloved Lebanon." His concern for Christians in Lebanon ran deeper still. In December 2025, he made Lebanon the destination of his first apostolic journey abroad .
On the ground, the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Paolo Borgia, travelled repeatedly to Southern Lebanon last month and again last week with humanitarian convoys, carrying what he described as "a message of hope."
"When we look towards Kfarkila, we say: there was a town here. Today, there is nothing, not a single house still standing," Daher said.
The village he pointed to, predominantly Shia, has been almost entirely flattened , its ruins now a visible warning to every community still holding on.
The situation of the Christian villages in Southern Lebanon has always been precarious.
"Christians in Southern Lebanon face a double threat: the ongoing Israeli bombardment and the historical pressures of living as a minority in predominantly Shia areas," said historian Imad.
He emphasised that the Christian presence in Southern Lebanon dates back to the early centuries of Christianity, when believers fleeing persecution in Palestine sought refuge here.
"Historical accounts indicate the region was predominantly Christian during the Middle Ages, before being largely abandoned in the Mamluk era and later resettled," explained Imad.
Imad pointed to two competing theories. The first holds that Prince Fakhr al-Din and his dynasty actively encouraged Christian families from Mount Lebanon in the north to relocate south, using them as a buffer for the Emirate of Mount Lebanon .
The second suggests it was economic pressure, as Christians in Mount Lebanon were burdened by heavy taxation, which pushed them to migrate toward regions considered safer at the time.
"At a pivotal moment in 1920, Christians from both Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun districts petitioned Patriarch Elias al-Huwayyik to be included within the borders of Greater Lebanon," he said.
"Whatever the route, they came, and they stayed, adopting two forms of resistance: remaining on the land, and taking up arms when necessary."
Lebanese Christians hold a profound spiritual attachment to their homeland, continued Imad.
"Religious tradition holds that Jesus Christ passed through southern Lebanon, and Qana is venerated as the site of his first miracle. The region is further linked, through Saint Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary's maternal cousin, to the very origins of Christian cultural memory." Lili Gerges is a Lebanese investigative journalist and in-depth reporter This article was published in collaboration with Egab