Malak told me they left Chaqra, a village in southern Lebanon, at four in the morning and did not reach her aunt’s house in Saida until one in the morning the next day.
“We were fasting and exhausted, but we had dates,” she said. “We took them out of the car and began sharing them with the people around us. We also helped another repair a car that had broken down, and despite the fear, we got to know each other.”
The following morning, the news arrived: their house had been bombed by Israel.
On March 2, residents across southern Lebanon woke to Israeli “evacuation orders.” At first glance, the term suggests concern for civilian life, invoking the language of safety and protection.
