Gulf between Hezbollah and Lebanese state grows wider as Israeli occupation continues

A woman in front of the rubble of her home, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on the village of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh. Photograph: Abdul Kader Al Bay/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock

Fatima al-Ashkar used toys to explain to her children that their father had been killed. She arranged toy soldiers in a mock battle and picked up an airplane, miming an air raid on the plastic men below.

“I started explaining to them: ‘Israel came and bombed here. Daddy was here. Daddy was martyred. Daddy was protecting us from Israel,’” said al-Ashkar, a 26-year-old resident of Markaba, south Lebanon. Her husband, Mohammed Ali, who was a member of Hezbollah, was killed fighting Israel in the region in early April.