“I don’t want to die”

At a Cyprus camp for evacuees waiting to return to the United States, Rima Fawaz recalled her children’s trauma at seeing warfare for the first time.

The family was on holiday with relatives in southern Lebanon when the fighting began. She and her husband fled north in a car with their two children and five nieces and nephews. They were about 100 metres from a bridge when it exploded, killing and wounding many people. In a panic, they tried to turn around and crashed their car.

“The kids started crying, they were sick. One almost passed out,” said Ms Fawaz, 35, of Tampa, Florida.

“The kids saw the wounded and the dead, and that’s when they went crazy. My little boy kept saying ‘please tell me this is fireworks, I don’t want to die’.”

But son - not even for Israel?