BEIRUT — Eighteen-month-old Ivana Likbiri was playing with her older sister on the balcony of their home one recent morning when Israel’s airstrikes came. In a flash, the wood terrace the two little girls were playing on went up in flames. “I don’t know what divine strength filled me, but I grabbed my girls from the fire and threw them over the balcony to save them,” says Ivana’s mother, Fatima Zayoun.
Zayoun’s time is now spent between two hospitals where her daughters are receiving treatment for severe burns. On this day, she’s at the bedside of little Ivana, whose arms, legs, head and face are all wrapped in bandages with only enough room for a pink pacifier to soothe her. The next day, Zayoun will swap places with her husband, who has been at the bedside of their 7-year-old Raha.
She’s recovering at a different hospital that still had open beds when the family made it to Beirut from their village of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr in southern Lebanon. Zayoun and her family are now among Lebanon’s 1.2 million displaced people who have had to flee their homes as Israel has intensified its airstrikes across the country in its fight against the Iran-backed political and militant group Hezbollah.
Some have settled into new homes in new neighborhoods, others are taking shelter in schools or nightclubs. Zayoun has no idea where her family will end up. “I’ve only been between the two hospitals and don’t know where we’re going to actually live,” she says, reflect.