“We’ve seen so many wars in that country. … This has been something that’s been part of my life ever since I was a young boy,” he said. “It’s very personal, and it’s very sad.”

Farhat’s concerns are echoed by others in New England, where more than 55,000 Lebanese people live, including some 31,000 in Massachusetts. They fear relatives will be caught up in the conflict and are concerned for the future of Lebanon amid an escalating war that has forced people to flee their homes and claimed the lives of hundreds.

Many of them who Farhat has spoken with at his century-old parish in New Bedford, which serves the Lebanese Maronite community, say their biggest concern is the escalating humanitarian crisis the country is facing, Farhat said.

“You can see the sadness, the concern,” Farhat said. “Many of us have family over there, and it’s been a very difficult situation to see and watch unfold.”

The latest fighting intensified in early March, when Israel launched strikes in southern Lebanon after the Iran-allied Lebanese group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel. This came after the United States and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel has accused Hezbollah of supporting Iran, according to The New York Times.

Israel and Hezbollah had been under a cease-fire since November 2024, following another war between the two sides, though Israel had been hitting targets in Lebanon since then, according to the Associated Press.

Israel has said even after the war with Hezbollah, it plans to occupy part of southern Lebanon, setting up a buffer zone inside the area and keeping security control over the territory. Some analysts say that the move could lead to the permanent displacement of communities from the region.

“The fear then is that the whole map of the country is being transformed,” said Ibrahim Warde, an adjunct professor at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Warde said there is panic among Lebanese people that the attacks have extended beyond just the southern part of the country, Hezbollah’s stronghold.

“That has created a sense of panic everywhere else and that no one is off-limits,” he said.

Since March, more than a million people have been displaced from the southern part of the country and at least 1,200 have died in Lebanon, the Associated Press has reported.

“They’ve left everything, left their homes, their livelihood,” Farhat said. “There are people who are sleeping on the streets because there’s no place for them.”

The Lebanese community in the US is also torn about speaking about what they are going through, said Matthew Thomas, a Lebanese American attorney based in New Bedford, and a longtime member of the Our Lady of Purgatory Church.

Those with immediate family in Lebanon are living with constant fear that the violence and the war might come for their relatives, Thomas said. At the same time, they are protective of their community here in the US; it’s where they feel safe. They don’t want to bring negative attention to the rest of the diaspora by articulating their concerns about the war, he said.

Over the last century, Lebanon has found itself embroiled in conflict in one form or another, Thomas pointed out, leaving generations who have known nothing but war.

“You have children that have grown up through nothing but war, and if a child grows up learning how to survive through a war, it’s amazing that they can lead a productive life,” he said. “It just amazes me, the resilience of the Lebanese people.”

Lara Jirmanus, a Lebanese American physician in Greater Boston, said that part of her fear is that Lebanon could experience similar devastation that Gaza has gone through over the last two years.

“It’s hard to imagine where it begins and ends,” she said. “So it’s really heartbreaking.”

Jirmanus said she feels luckier than the people in Lebanon caught in the middle of a war who are denied a chance at a normal life.

She had planned on taking her two children to visit family in Lebanon over the summer for the first time. But now, she does not feel like it will be safe for them.

“I’m just feeling really heartbroken at this point,” she said.

Omar Mohammed can be reached at omar.mohammed@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter (X) @shurufu.