This morning we left the traffic-clogged streets of Beirut, which has filled up with people fleeing areas hit by Israeli airstrikes, for the Bekaa Valley.
Lebanon is as ever a tale of two countries. In the hill resorts of Mount Lebanon life feels pretty normal but things change as you drop into the Bekaa Valley, where the traffic thins out dramatically and things feel much more tense.
Israel has mounted airstrikes across the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold. In a deserted restaurant in the village of Hezarta, the elderly proprietress, Amal, tells us that there have been air strikes in several areas on its outskirts.
Up the road in a settlement called Umul an airstrike hit an outlying farm, she and her grandson Hassan tell us. The couple living in the farmstead had been joined by two relatives who had fled from the south, assuming they would be safer here.
That was not the case. “Only one of the four survived,” Hassan says.
Sitting alone among the jars of olive oil and dried cherries she makes to sell to customers, Amal tells us that normally the restaurant, with its stunning view across the valley, would be full of patrons by noon. But it is now empty.
Despite the threat to her safety, she has no plans to leave.
“Where would I go?” She says. “I’m not scared. When your time comes, it comes. If God wants you to live then you will live, even if the Israelis bomb you.”
