Lebanese Christian Joseph Jarjour was hoping for a peaceful retirement at home in south Lebanon, but has instead found himself caught in the crossfire of the Israel-Hezbollah war.
"We're trapped," said the 68-year-old retired teacher in the southern village of Rmeish, around two kilometers (one mile) from the Israeli border.
After almost a year of cross-border fire, Israel began conducting a wave of strikes targeting Hezbollah strongholds and sent ground troops across the border late last month.
Jarjour's hometown is among a handful of Christian villages in south Lebanon that have largely been spared the worst of the violence but remain caught between the two sides.
"When Israel bombards, it flies over our heads. And when Hezbollah fires back, it also whizzes by above," Jarjour told AFP by phone during a rare moment of internet connectivity.
"We're peaceful, we don't have any weapons. We've never liked war," he said.
"We want to stay in our homes and we don't want to choose sides."
The violence since September 23 has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon and forced a million more from their homes, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
Jarjour said roads out of Rmeish were unsafe so it was "very hard" to escape and drive northwards to the capital, Beirut.
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/308581-christian-villagers-trapped-in-south-lebanon-crossfire