Abu Ali

I was born in Kfar Kila, a village in Lebanon on the southern border with Israel, and lived there all my life. I started working in construction after school. I got married, and my wife and I raised a family of 5 children.

I built our home to be my family’s refuge. My wife and I lived there together until eight years ago, when she passed away. The home is my whole life. The house is 300 square metres, and the rest of the land is all garden. It has everything. It has grapevines. It has walnut trees. It has sour plum trees. It has plum and pomegranate trees. I grow my own vegetables there.

Every day, I would sit under the walnut tree, every day. I liked to till the soil, plant things, or water the plants from under its shade. That’s how I spent my time.

We left Kfar Kila on New Year’s Day 2024. The war started three months before that, but there wasn’t that much destruction; the shelling hadn’t intensified yet. I told my son to leave at the start of the war, I told him to take his kids to safety. I remained in Kfar Kila with my daughter, because we could still take it.

We were almost the last people in the village to leave. We didn’t think we would have to go. We didn’t think the war would last so long or be so hard. In 2006, during the war between Israel and Hezbollah, we stayed in our home for the entire 33 days.

Things started getting serious at the end of December 2023. The house next to us was hit and three people were killed. We realised they were intensifying the bombing, so we left.

We didn’t take anything. We left with only the clothes we were wearing. Everything in the house was dear to my heart. I bought carpets for the house; they were still brand new. I hadn’t even washed them yet.

At first we went to Nabatieh, but we couldn’t find a decent house to stay in. Then the whole family went to stay in an apartment my daughter-in-law’s aunt owns in Ghazieh, a district south of Sidon in south Lebanon.

Then things escalated in late September, and there were bombings nearby. I didn’t want to leave, so my daughter and I stayed behind. It's not easy to move from one place to another, especially when the house is not your house, and the village is not your village. But then the building next to us was destroyed, so we went to Marjayoun, where my son-in-law knows people. 

In Marjayoun, we stayed in a secondary school for 15 days. My daughter and I shared a room with a bathroom, and we slept on mattresses on the floor. Three quarters of the people in the school were from our village, from Kfar Kila. During the bombings, we used to sit and hang out together, drinking coffee or tea. There was a lot of bombing, but it wasn’t too close to where we were.

An aid group gave us food and water. But as the war continued and the bombings worsened, they said they couldn't help anymore. But we knew people with cows in the area. They couldn’t sell the milk they were producing, so they gave it to us. They also gave us food, drinks, and other essentials. They even gave us mouneh, homemade preserved food. We cooked for ourselves, too.

But the bombings got closer in October. Some people from our village were martyred; they were paramedics. Seven people were killed in one day. After that, everyone left. Each person went somewhere else. 

I went to Daraya, in the Chouf district of the Lebanese mountains, where my son and the rest of our family were staying. We stayed there for two months, in a four-room after-school tutoring centre. We, eight members of the family, shared a room. I didn’t like it much there. I didn’t know anyone. I used to sit on the balcony all day. I would have tea or coffee, then smoke, and that was what I did all day.

I’ve never been that still in my entire life. For my whole life, even if I didn’t have to work one day, I would go outside from morning till noon, come back to pray, have lunch, go out again, and come back home at sunset. I don’t like staying inside. But I didn’t have a choice. We stayed there for two months, until the ceasefire.

Now we are back in Ghazieh, at the same apartment that my daughter-in-law’s aunt owns. I’ve started leaving the house in the morning again. I have some neighbours here I hang out with, but I don’t have much else to do.

Throughout almost the entire war, our house in Kfar Kila remained standing. Up until 20 days before the ceasefire, it was just charred. We thought it would be fine; we could fix that.

The Israelis posted videos of homes they destroyed on the army’s official social media channels, circulated on Lebanese social media and news sites. So we saw our house, and that it was decimated. It was over. Before that, we had hopes of going back, and living like we used to. There was nothing we could do but trust in God, just like so many others in our situation.

Every part of this experience has been hard. Everything is hard when someone leaves his home village, and the home where he lived and raised a family.

I just wish I could have remained in my house. I had a garage for my car, and a room with its own bathroom on the land, for taking breaks in the fields. If that was still standing, we could go and live in it. But everything is gone! We went to check, and the whole village was reduced to rubble. The whole village! I also lost two of my nephews: They were martyred.

I don’t think life will ever go back to the way it was. We’ve been through a lot. This was the hardest war I’ve seen. The destruction was so massive. They blew up one home, then another. We’ve never seen such cruelty.

I don’t think I’ll be able to return. That’s how it looks right now, anyway. Even if there is reconstruction, how long will it take; four or five years? Will I even still be alive then? 

This house isn’t my home. My homeland is Lebanon, and my house is my second homeland. If I could pitch a tent where my house was, I’d be more comfortable there than if I lived in a castle somewhere else.