{"id":16155,"date":"2026-03-30T12:44:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/i-want-my-children-to-live-their-lives-without-war\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T06:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:29:09","slug":"i-want-my-children-to-live-their-lives-without-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/i-want-my-children-to-live-their-lives-without-war\/","title":{"rendered":"I Want My Children to Live Their Lives Without War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ghada, a pseudonym, sits on a wooden bench across from me, but her eyes drift far away, staring at a horizon that seems blocked. Beside her sits her son, who never leaves her side, watching her troubled face closely. Ghada is 33 years old and has two sons; the first is 11, and the second is nearly ten. <\/p>\n\n

She is from one of the southern towns and lives alone in Nabatieh. She works in a shop to provide for her children and support their education, while her husband is away from the family. Ghada says:“I was a child when Israel withdrew from the south in 2000. I had never experienced wars before, until the war of 2024 began. I decided to stay in Nabatieh, living through airstrikes near me. I never expected the strikes to reach so close to my home. When the first strike hit near the house, I was in shock. The children started crying, and I didn\u2019t know what to do. I held them, and we all cried together. I left my home and went to my family\u2019s house, then to Beirut, and from there to Akkar to stay with my husband\u2019s family.” <\/p>\n\n

“We were four families in one house in a town in Akkar. I lived through the worst days of my life, not because of the war, which had not reached there, but because of the mistreatment I faced from my husband\u2019s family. I would call my family and tell them I wanted to return to Beirut, and they would say, be patient, until my brother-in-law hit me. That was when I decided to return to Beirut, where my family was.” <\/p>\n\n

\"I did not know what my fate or my children\u2019s fate would be. I kept asking myself: will I find the house? And if I do, what will happen to my children?\"    <\/em><\/pre>\n\n
Ghada pauses for a moment, tears streaming down her face, then continues:“That day, I did not know what would happen to me or my children. I kept asking: will I find the house? And if I do, what will happen to them? What about their school? Will they continue their education? How will we live? How will I provide for them when I am alone with no one to support me? And what about their mental state, when they are constantly crying and afraid of every loud sound?”<\/p>\n\n
When she returned to Nabatieh, the damage to her home was minor compared to the surrounding houses, but it had no windows, no glass, and the furniture had been damaged by the shelling.“But losing family and friends was far more painful than losing homes.”Ghada returned home, but she had already packed clothes for her children along with official documents and passports in ready bags, waiting for what would happen after the previous ceasefire.     <\/p>\n\n
She did not wait more than a year and three months.“On the night of March first, my children and I were at my family\u2019s house, waiting for morning so I could go to work. We heard that the southern suburbs had been bombed, but we woke up to the sound of an airstrike in Toul. I couldn\u2019t return home to get the bags, and we had no car to retrieve our belongings. My father was asleep at my house, so I asked him to bring the clothes and official documents. We contacted a van driver who took us part of the way, then returned us to Nabatieh and told us he couldn\u2019t continue due to traffic. We stayed at my family\u2019s house until we found another driver who brought us to this school in Saida after six hours on the road.”    <\/p>\n\n
\"I decided to stay in Nabatieh, living with airstrikes close to me,\" <\/em> \"I never expected them to reach so close to my home.\"<\/em><\/pre>\n\n
She continues:“On the second day, my father brought the bags, the documents, and the passports. We slept the first two nights on the floor, without mattresses or pillows. After that, the minimum basic needs were provided.”  <\/p>\n\n
Ghada falls silent for a moment, her eyes moving restlessly, unsure how to continue. Then she says:“Please don\u2019t ask me how I live, or how we will continue our lives. I don\u2019t want my children to live through war. There is nothing left in my life that matters except my children. What kind of future awaits them? Don\u2019t think I sleep. I feel empty. There is no peace of mind, no open horizon. All I want is for the war to end. I am ready to make up for everything my children lost, so they never have to experience war again or be affected by it. I don\u2019t want their knowledge to be limited to recognizing types of weapons and explosions. I want them to grow up without war. I want nothing for myself. I want everything for them.”               <\/p>\n\n
Something stops her from continuing, before she adds:“Alongside all this psychological pressure, I also think about my financial situation, and how I will provide my children\u2019s basic needs, their schools, their books, everything. Now we live with my family in this shelter, and we don\u2019t know if we will return to what remains of our home, or how we will continue our lives.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ghada, a pseudonym, sits on a wooden bench across from me, but her eyes drift far away, staring at a horizon that seems blocked. Beside her sits her son, who never leaves her side, watching her troubled face closely. Ghada is 33 years old and has two sons; the first is 11, and the second is nearly ten. She is from one of the southern towns and lives alone in Nabatieh. She works in a shop to provide for her children and support their education, while her husband is away from the family. Ghada says:“I was a child when Israel withdrew from the south in 2000. I had never experienced wars before, until the war of 2024 began. I decided to stay in Nabatieh, living through airstrikes near me. I never expected the strikes to reach so close to my home. When the first strike hit near the house, I was in shock. The children started crying, and I didn\u2019t know what to do. I held them, and we all cried together. I left my home and went to my family\u2019s house, then to Beirut, and from there to Akkar to stay with my husband\u2019s family.” “We were four families in one house in a town in Akkar. I lived through the worst days of my life, not because of the war, which had not reached there, but because of the mistreatment I faced from my husband\u2019s family. I would call my family and tell them I wanted to return to Beirut, and they would say, be patient, until my brother-in-law hit me. That was when I decided to return to Beirut, where my family was.” “I did not know what my fate or my children\u2019s fate would be. I kept asking myself: will I find the house? And if I do, what will happen to my children?” Ghada pauses for a moment, tears streaming down her face, then continues:“That day, I did not know what would happen to me or my children. I kept asking: will I find the house? And if I do, what will happen to them? What about their school? Will they continue their education? How will we live? How will I provide for them when I am alone with no one to support me? And what about their mental state, when they are constantly crying and afraid of every loud sound?” When she returned to Nabatieh, the damage to her home was minor compared to the surrounding houses, but it had no windows, no glass, and the furniture had been damaged by the shelling.“But losing family and friends was far more painful than losing homes.”Ghada returned home, but she had already packed clothes for her children along with official documents and passports in ready bags, waiting for what would happen after the previous ceasefire. She did not wait more than a year and three months.“On the night of March first, my children and I were at my family\u2019s house, waiting for morning so I could go to work. We heard that the southern suburbs had been bombed, but we woke up to the sound of an airstrike in Toul. I couldn\u2019t return home to get the bags, and we had no car to retrieve our belongings. My father was asleep at my house, so I asked him to bring the clothes and official documents. We contacted a van driver who took us part of the way, then returned us to Nabatieh and told us he couldn\u2019t continue due to traffic. We stayed at my family\u2019s house until we found another driver who brought us to this school in Saida after six hours on the road.” “I decided to stay in Nabatieh, living with airstrikes close to me,” “I never expected them to reach so close to my home.” She continues:“On the second day, my father brought the bags, the documents, and the passports. We slept the first two nights on the floor, without mattresses or pillows. After that, the minimum basic needs were provided.” Ghada falls silent for a moment, her eyes moving restlessly, unsure how to continue. Then she says:“Please don\u2019t ask me how I live, or how we will continue our lives. I don\u2019t want my children to live through war. There is nothing left in my life that matters except my children. What kind of future awaits them? Don\u2019t think I sleep. I feel empty. There is no peace of mind, no open horizon. All I want is for the war to end. I am ready to make up for everything my children lost, so they never have to experience war again or be affected by it. I don\u2019t want their knowledge to be limited to recognizing types of weapons and explosions. I want them to grow up without war. I want nothing for myself. I want everything for them.” Something stops her from continuing, before she adds:“Alongside all this psychological pressure, I also think about my financial situation, and how I will provide my children\u2019s basic needs, their schools, their books, everything. Now we live with my family in this shelter, and we don\u2019t know if we will return to what remains of our home, or how we will continue our lives.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":16153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[522,340],"tags":[347,343,363,357,345,376],"class_list":["post-16155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-people-of-the-south-speak","category-blog","tag-lebanon-en","tag-mental_health","tag-south","tag-war-en","tag-women","tag-youth-en-2"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-54.jpg",2048,900,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-54.jpg",2048,900,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-54.jpg",2048,900,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-54-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-54-300x132.jpg",300,132,true],"large":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-54-1024x450.jpg",1024,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-54-1536x675.jpg",1536,675,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-54.jpg",2048,900,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"\u0648\u0641\u064a\u0642 \u0627\u0644\u0647\u0648\u0627\u0631\u064a","author_link":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/author\/wafiq-elhawary\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"The People of the South Speak<\/a> Blog<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Ghada, a pseudonym, sits on a wooden bench across from me, but her eyes drift far away, staring at a horizon that seems blocked. Beside her sits her son, who never leaves her side, watching her troubled face closely. Ghada is 33 years old and has two sons; the first is 11, and the second…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16156,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16155\/revisions\/16156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silatwassel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}