BEIRUT - Along with celebratory fire and the sound of explosions, children in Beirut’s Dahiyeh are experiencing a new kind of violence. As Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah delivered his latest speech and while Speaker Nabih Berri was interviewed on Kuwaiti television, the area witnessed heavy gunfire–including shells–followed by twin bombings in Bir Hassan next to the Islamic Orphanage that led to the injury of ten children from the establishment.
The children have grown accustomed to the violent sounds, which is practiced against them every day, from the sound of heavy weaponry used by the clans when they clash in Dahiyeh’s neighborhoods to gunfire on happy and sad occasions, and finally the sound of bombings. All this has terrified children in the area making the fear of death their only preoccupation.
Hadi (11 years old) seemed nervous when talking about yesterday’s explosion in Bir Hassan. He had been at school when he heard the sound. “I was afraid and got nervous thinking about my family, until the teacher told us that the bombing had happened far away from Dahiyeh, which meant our house. So my classmates stopped crying and we finished our lesson,” he told NOW.
Hadi, like other children from the area, used to play with his friends in the street during his spare time. Today they are all hidden away in their houses, afraid of explosions and stray bullets. “I used to be afraid of the sound of shooting, then I got used to it,” the young boy said.
“But after all these explosions happening close to us, I’ve started thinking about my death and the death of my family.”
Hassan (7 years old) hides in his mother’s arms and cries when he hears the sound of gunfire or explosions. “I can’t play with my friends in front of the house. I’m afraid of the explosions that could take my life or my family’s life, I don’t want to die,” said Hassan.
The warlike scenario Dahiyeh’s children live in is completed, in addition to noise pollution, by empty streets and piles of sandbags in front of most shops. Meanwhile Hezbollah militants deployed on every street corner have put lifting metal gateways on the streets where their security compounds are based in areas populated by civilians. Add to that the remains left by each bombing and the subsequent images of death continuously displayed by all news outlets and social media websites.
Noise violence does not only affect Dahiyeh’s children; hostilities have not stopped in Tripoli or Lebanon’s border regions in the North, the Beqaa Valley and even the South. Today fear has come to affect all Lebanon’s children.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/lebanonnews/536247-innocent-children-face-celebratory-fire-terrorist-bombings
