Samar showing a picture of her daughter Neife Awad, injured by a booby-trapped pager, on Sept. 1, 2025, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. (Credit: Matthieu Karam/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Neife Awad, 31, takes off her sunglasses to reveal two empty eye sockets. Around them, a constellation of scars marks the moment when a booby-trapped pager exploded in her face, plunging her into darkness.The former director of housekeeping at Saint George Hospital in Hadath, in Beirut's southern suburbs, says she accepted her fate through faith and her belief in a cause."At first, the pain was so intense that the doctors kept me sedated for days. When I woke up, I asked my mother: 'Why can't I see anything?' She replied that my eyes were with Sayyida [Fatima] Zahra [the prophet's daughter]," Awad remembers. "'And my hands?' They're with her, too, my mom said. So I said, Alhamdullilah [thank God]."Sept. 17, 2024, 3:30 p.m.Thousands of tiny bombs, hidden in pagers, sowed terror in...
Neife Awad, 31, takes off her sunglasses to reveal two empty eye sockets. Around them, a constellation of scars marks the moment when a booby-trapped pager exploded in her face, plunging her into darkness.The former director of housekeeping at Saint George Hospital in Hadath, in Beirut's southern suburbs, says she accepted her fate through faith and her belief in a cause."At first, the pain was so intense that the doctors kept me sedated for days. When I woke up, I asked my mother: 'Why can't I see anything?' She replied that my eyes were with Sayyida [Fatima] Zahra [the prophet's daughter]," Awad remembers. "'And my hands?' They're with her, too, my mom said. So I said, Alhamdullilah [thank God]."Sept. 17, 2024, 3:30 p.m.Thousands of tiny bombs, hidden in pagers, sowed terror in...