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Miriam Yehia Mrouh, 75, a Shia grandmother, rose at 4.30am on July 23 to pray when a rocket hit her home at Haloussiye, south Lebanon. Only six out of fifteen family members there survived. She has severe wounds to her head and legs. One of her sons and his five children were killed. “This is our punishment for being peaceful neighbours. I didn’t hate Israel. Now I do,” she says.

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Maytham Balhas, 19, is a Shia student. His house at Sadageen in the south was flattened at 4.30am on July 18 when his family were asleep. It was only as he was fleeing that he noticed his right arm was almost severed at the elbow, hanging by the skin. He insists Hezbollah fighters were not sheltering in his village. “I am not a fighter, but I promise if I can get out of this bed, I will be.”

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Ahmed Ali, 45, a Shia taxi driver, lost both his legs when a missile struck his home at Blida on July 19. His family were sheltering in a basement. Six of them were injured and are at the Rafik Hariri hospital in Beirut. Among them is his daughter, Fatma, who has just turned 12. “What kind of father can I be to my children now ?” he asks.

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Ghadir Shaito, 15, a Shia schoolgirl, cannot speak because of injuries to her jaw and mouth. Her face is pitted with shrapnel and badly burnt. On July 23 the minibus that relatives in Beirut had sent to collect 18 of her family stranded in Tyre was bombed, killing three on board. She doesn’t know what happened to her father, who gave up his seat to an elderly neighbour.

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