The Dreadful Summer-MA

For many years, Lebanon had always been the victim of Israel. The day before the kidnapping incident, my family and I went to my grandma’s house in Nabatiyah, Lebanon to spend our summer vacation. Upon our arrival, I visited my friends whom I hadn’t seen for a year. The next morning, I was awakened by my mom yelling, “Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers; something terrible is going to happen!” I then heard my dad assuring her that nothing major would happen. After a couple of days, we heard on the T.V that Israel had declared war on Lebanon.

My mom and my grandma started crying, My grandpa was shivering, and my dad got angry. I myself was scared, for I have never lived through a war in my life. I asked my dad, “What’s going to happen?”

My dad answered, “Nothing. Don’t worry everything is going to be fine.”

I then yelled at my dad and said, “I am old enough to know what’s going on, so tell me!” He ignored me and said nothing. At that moment, I got very frustrated and angry, because I didn’t know what was going to happen. After a couple of minutes, my dad decided that we should go instantly before it got any worse.

My mom grabbed the passports, and nothing more. The car was too small for my grandparents to fit in, so they stayed behind. We rushed into the car and drove until we reached the Zahrani Bridge that connected the south with Beirut. I felt nervous and terrified, because I knew a bomb could land on us while we were in the car. After a while, we saw smoke packed like a grey cloud rising from a few meters away.

We drove closely and saw that the bridge was bombed. It was cut in half like a chocolate bar. My dad stopped the car. Everything was in chaos. There was a ton of traffic; people were out of their cars trying to figure out what was happening. There were also war planes passing above us. Every ten minutes we would hear the sound of a bomb.

My dad proposed turning back to our house in Nabatiya. However, my mom thought that it was too dangerous to take the risk again. So she proposed that we find another road to pass from. Just then, we noticed that some people started passing from another road. We had no choice but to follow them.

We passed through fields that were used for farms. We drove for an hour until we found ourselves in an easy road back to our house in Beirut. Thank God we arrived to our house. After three days, my grandparents managed to find a way to get back to Beirut. I couldn’t be much happier. For the next couple of weeks, I couldn’t sleep at night from the sound of the bombs that landed on Dahyeh. I spent most of my time watching the shocking news. From the pictures I saw on T.V, I felt as if I was there, smelling the smoke and seeing the destruction.
The war on Lebanon 2006 was a tragic war. Besides the fact that more than a 1000 people died in Lebanon, many families are now homeless. Many children died, and some became orphans. As for the people who lost their jobs, they don’t have enough money to raise their families. I hope that Lebanon returns to its beauty and that it will be the last war the Lebanese will have to live through.