I'm bracing for the worst'?

Beirut's youth adjust to an emptied city

- Ruth Michaelson

As a powerful barrage of Israeli airstrikes pummelled Beirut's southern suburbs, cousins Nader Ismail and Lyne Nassar sat on a balcony in nearby Baabda overwhelmed with shock. Ismail said the terror made him freeze where he sat, while Nassar said she stood up before sitting down and attempting to calm herself about what is now a near nightly occurrence.

"It felt like we could feel the pressure waves from the bombings washing over us," said Nassar. "The windows shook, the whole building shook. It was traumatising."

The 21-year-old medical student and her family first fled Beirut's southern suburbs for the town of Aley in the mountains around the capital in late August, initially as a precaution.

Ismail, 20, and his family joined them for the second time 10 days ago, fleeing the bombardments striking the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh and driving out residents to other parts of the city and surrounding areas.

The cousins said the family home in the mountains is now so full with people that they had decided to take a break at the apartment in Baabda, even though it is closer to the airstrikes, but the intense wave of attacks that sent columns of smoke and fire into the night sky forced them back.