Courtesy of Christina Assi
I grew up hearing stories about the Israeli occupation from my grandparents, who were born and raised in southern Lebanon. They spoke of Israeli troops raiding homes, of children living in constant fear, and of those who were detained and tortured in a prison established by Israeli forces in our village in 1982. As a child, I found these stories almost unreal. We couldn’t often visit the south, as the Syrian occupation and its checkpoints turned what should have been a short drive into hours of exhaustion.
My only understanding of those checkpoints was how they made my brother nauseous, unaware of what they represented.
