Day four of Israel’s assault on Lebanon, and a bride and groom appear in the garden of my parents’ home. They stand side by side — her dress is white and trimmed with sequins and lace — and smile broadly as their pictures are taken.

It is not unusual for young couples to come here with photographers in tow nearly every Sunday in summer. My parents’ garden has the only bit of decent lawn in this small Mount Lebanon village and around its edges, just where the grass begins to dip into the pine-filled valley below, there are flowerbeds of pink, violet and blue hydrangeas in full bloom.

The sight of the newlyweds raises my spirits. I call my two-year-old daughter Zeina over and lift her up so she can see what is going on. For a brief moment, I manage to forget about the war.

On Wednesday, July 12, I’d been sitting in a Beirut café with a friend when I happened to look up at the television placed just above the cashier’s chair. CNN was reporting five Israeli soldiers killed and two taken prisoner in a Hezbollah operation. I knew immediately that the repercussions for such an act would be dire and hurriedly got up to return home.

Early next morning, my husband Bassem and I woke to two loud explosions. We jumped out of bed and ran on to our balcony to watch smoke rising from the airport runway in the distance. We looked at each other and realised that things were likely to get much, much worse.

We were concerned mainly about my niece and two nephews recently arrived from the US and the UK. They were here to spend the summer with us but I was beginning to think it would be best if they left the country. The airport had closed down and the only other way out would be via the Syrian border; all three have foreign passports and blatantly foreign names, and they might have difficulty getting into Syria without Lebanese IDs.

Bassem and I go to bed on Thursday night having decided to send my elderly parents and the children up to my father’s village 20km (12 miles) east of Beirut until we can work out what to do. All I can focus on as I wait for sleep is my anger at Hezbollah for making the decision to go to war without consulting anyone else in the country. It is several hours before I finally manage to drop off.

The next morning I watch one car drive off with my parents, their Filipino housekeeper and the dog. The driver, a sensible young man from a village in the West Bekaa who has been taking care of my father for the past year, has promised me that if the roads prove too dangerous, he’ll turn back. As I wave them away, I can hear Israeli fighter jets overhead and Bassem tells me he thinks we should make our way up to the mountains as well. Back in the apartment, I take out a large suitcase and begin to throw in clothes; later I will discover missing essentials such as dental floss, books, warm sweaters and Zeina’s potty (we had been planning to embark on toilet training this summer).

Our first night here and Zeina is unused to the new surroundings. We are all three of us sharing a room and she has to sleep in a portable cot that is smaller than her bed at home. I sit in an armchair where she can see me and wait as she cries herself to sleep. In the dark, the pine trees outside our window are visible only in silhouette.

We are all exhausted with sadness.

The next day we receive dozens of e-mails and calls from friends both here and abroad asking how we are doing. My brother calls from Saudi Arabia where he works and my two sisters telephone from Florida and London. For the moment at least, there is no talk of trying to get the children out of the country. It seems safer to stay put in the village and wait it out for a day or two to see what transpires.

Karim, 22, and Dina, 19, are my older sister’s children. Their father is American and they have lived in the US all their lives, although they make regular trips here to visit us. Ramsey is my younger sister’s 16-year-old son. His father is from the UK and he was born and brought up in London, but he has also made frequent trips to Lebanon over the years. Along with my brother’s daughter Aida, 18, they all seem unaware of how serious the situation really is. They try constantly to make me smile and I am unable to oblige.

First you hear the drone buzzing incessantly from an indeterminate place in the sky. I think the technical name for them is “unmanned aircraft” and the Israelis use them for reconnaissance purposes just before the real bombing begins. A few hours later the distant rumbling of aircraft grows louder and is followed by explosions. That moment before the bomb finally drops is the worst, I think. Later, you find out who or what was hit.