#lebanon

#lebanon

U.S. forces shot down Iranian drones near the Strait of Hormuz and struck an area along Iran's coast overnight, according to a U.S. official who spoke to NPR. In retaliation for the attack on Bandar Abbas, Iran's Revolutionary Guard says this morning it targeted the American base that launched the attack. U.S. and Iran peace talks continue.

“For me it's important to call it women's empowerment in public spaces, ” she says. “After two weeks I felt I was changing - not just in sports but my mental health and everything,” says Aisha Saqqa, 18, and a first-year business management student in college. “Mirella told us to act differently.” That includes noticing their surroundings in public instead of striving to not be noticed, keeping their heads up and making eye contact. It also includes using their voices, a challenge for some girls raised to be quiet.

There are ambulances here. There are also rescue teams and people who have fled their homes this evening following this forced [displacement] order. Many left in fear and panic, he said, seeing these orders as threats while being unsure of when they could return home. People are here with their families and their children, Hitto said.

Ayman al-Zain watched on a recent afternoon as a bulldozer cleared the rubble of what used to be his sports clothing store, which was one of dozens of buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group. With a nominal truce in place that has reduced but not halted the fighting, Al-Zain tried to assess whether to rebuild the shop in Beirut's southern suburbs that he once hoped to pass down to his kids. But it's unlikely he will be able to do so anytime soon, and not only because of the fear of more airstrikes.

Israel has destroyed schools across southern Lebanon and displaced hundreds of thousands of students. Hundreds of educational institutions have turned into makeshift shelters for thousands of displaced people, causing a compounding series of disruptions to an education system that was already struggling as a result of a debilitating economic crisis.

In southern Lebanon, specifically in the town of Nabatieh, a family of six - a father, a mother, and their four children - was forced to leave their home abruptly after evacuation leaflets were circulated in their area amid intensified shelling.

The center of the village lies in ruins. A row of single-story shops blown out, goods scattered on the ground, glass shattered along the sidewalk. Homes and buildings are crumpled into themselves, unrecognizable.

More than 1.2 million people in Lebanon are expected to face acute hunger this year due to conflict, displacement and economic pressures amid the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The exhibition, entitled Forget Me Not: South Lebanon in Memory and Motion, took place earlier this month, as this largely rural part of the Levant became a front in the US and Israeli war against Iran.