Nadine Malli who works with Save the Children in Lebanon, has 10 years of experience working within the humanitarian sector. Currently, she is part of Save the Children Lebanon’s ongoing emergency response. Here she shares a testimony of her experiences.
Nadine Malli has responded to several major crises, including the Syrian Crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Beirut port explosion in 2020, and the emergency response in Southern Lebanon in 2023. Currently, she is part of Lebanon’s ongoing emergency response, where she witnessed the escalation of Israeli airstrikes and had to evacuate with her family to a safer place.
I grew up in Beirut, but from a young age, the thought of visiting family in the South always filled me with excitement. Whenever my dad told us to get ready because we were going to the village, it felt like a holiday or a celebration.
I remember being in the car on the way from Beirut to the South, constantly asking my dad if we had arrived yet. As the journey seemed to take a long time, I would ask if we were still going to the south. As a child, I was impatient and eager to arrive quickly, not fully understanding the concept of time and distance.
For children in Lebanon, visiting the south was always associated with holidays, celebrations, and long summer vacations. There we learned about different seasons, experienced beautiful sunrises and sunsets, saw fields of poppy flowers and wheat, and enjoyed the tranquil landscapes filled with olive trees, the sound of crickets, and the crowing of roosters.
I haven't visited my family’s village in the south for over a year now, ever since the war erupted along the borders of South Lebanon. I've missed several holidays, family gatherings, and countless moments — even wondering how many litters our backyard cat Pumpkin has had in our absence.
The constant fear of the war escalating to the southern suburbs of Beirut has haunted me throughout this entire year. Witnessing what is happening in Gaza all this year has only deepened these fears, I've endured relentless nightmares, sleepless nights, and overwhelming anxiety just from imagining how we would gather our belongings and evacuate while bombs rained down around us.
Three weeks ago, the Israeli bombings intensified, forcing us and around more than one million people to flee their homes in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the eastern regions.
Over 2,000 people have been killed so far by Israeli airstrikes, including over 100 children. At least 10,000 people have been injured. Not only that: more than half of public schools are now used as shelters, making this the sixth year of significant disruptions to education for children in Lebanon.
As part of my role as Communications Coordinator at Save the Children, I conducted my first field visit this week. Early one morning, we headed to a collective shelter in Mount Lebanon. To be honest, I felt anxious and conflicted about the visit. Despite working in the humanitarian field for over 10 years, this time felt different, heavier.
Schools, typically places where children receive an education and enjoy recess with friends, have now become temporary shelters for displaced families.
The two-floors school I visited first has around six classrooms per floor, each classroom now accommodating three families. Both children and elderly share these crowded spaces, with over 18 families living on each floor. They all have to share a single toilet per floor, which lacks hot water and is inadequate for the number of people.
Children and elderly alike must wait in long lines to access the toilet—a basic right that has become a daily struggle. Unexpectedly, the first family I met at the shelter was from a nearby village, and they knew my entire family. They recalled names, streets, shops, and landmarks that are etched in my memory from my village and the surrounding areas. It was surreal and deeply emotional.
Then I met Amar*, a 17-year-old girl, in one of the collective shelters in Mount Lebanon. The school had been transformed into a temporary collective* shelter for those displaced by the intense Israeli airstrikes that began on 23 September 2024. As I approached her, she was wandering the halls, looking lost and uncertain.
"This whole place is so strange to me," she said quietly, glancing around. "I don’t know what to do here."
Amar's eyes revealed a deep sense of confusion, but her words spoke of another life—one she had carefully built, now shattered by war. "I had my own world," she told me. "My room and my desk were everything to me. I was already planning for the new academic year. I have official exams this year, and I even had a private tutor to help me prepare."
She smiled faintly, reminiscing about the space she cherished. "I bought all the stationery, set up my room just the way I wanted, and hung a paper on my door that said, ‘Do not disturb.’ I was so focused on my studies."
But all her dreams, her plans, were abruptly interrupted and shattered by the Israeli airstrikes. Amar’s world, like her room, had been violated, not by the noise of a sibling or a neighbour, but by the deafening bombs that rained down on her village.
"The airstrike hit the house next to ours. We thought our house had been bombed too. We were all screaming and running," she recalled, her voice trembling. "I grabbed a few clothes, and we left. It took us about 10 hours to get to this safe place."
During my visit, while I was speaking with Amar* and other displaced families, we received news of a nearby collective* shelter being bombed. In that moment, I couldn’t help but think they could target the shelter we were in next. This war has crossed all boundaries, and it feels like nothing is off-limits anymore.
Amar had always wanted to prepare an emergency bag in case things got worse. Her books, sketchbooks, and stationery were her most important possessions. "But when it happened," she said, "the fear was so overwhelming that I couldn’t even think about packing them."
Now, in the shelter, time stretches into nothingness. "Here, I have nothing to do. I used to spend my time studying and drawing. But now, I don’t have any of my books or sketchbooks. I just sit here… in a void," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
She showed me photos of her room, her desk, and some of the drawings she used to work on. Her talent was evident, especially in still-life and anime sketches. "I love watching anime," she said, her eyes lighting up for a moment. But even that joy had been taken from her.
"I was enrolled in online support classes, but I can’t attend them anymore because there’s no internet here," she sighed heavily. Her final words echoed with a deep longing for the life she left behind. "I miss my house, and the special world I built in my room. I want to go back, even if my house is bombed."
In that moment, I understood that Amar wasn’t just grieving the loss of a physical home—she was mourning the collapse of her dreams, her plans, and the world she had so carefully crafted for herself. I reassured Amar* that, no matter how long the war lasted, I was certain she would return to her village, sit at her desk once again, study, and draw like before. Just as I am confident that I will return to my village in the south, to our home in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where we will build new houses, and create new memories and dreams on the remnants of the war and destruction.
Notes
*Collective shelters are pre-existing buildings and structures where large groups of displaced people find shelter for a short time while durable solutions are pursued. A variety of facilities may be used as collective centres - community centres, town halls, hotels, gymnasiums, warehouses, unfinished buildings, and disused factories. Infrastructure and basic services are provided on a communal basis or access to them is made possible.
