Lebanon is not unaccustomed to war. But Will Christou, who reports from Lebanon for the Guardian, says this time feels different. “Beirut is famous for partying through war. But this time there is a sense of weariness. There’s a sense that the entire country is suffering. In the last rounds of conflict, there were areas where the war was there and this place is safe. But now there’s been strikes in central Beirut, hitting hotels, hitting major buildings. So the sense that nowhere is safe is really pervading.”

Since Israel and the US attacked Iran, much of the war has been fought from the air with drones, missiles and rockets. But since Hezbollah sent missiles into Israel, a ground war has begun in southern Lebanon, the Guardian’s international correspondent Michael Safi hears. Israel has said it wants to create a buffer zone – and the consequences for civilians are brutal.

“It’s a siege scenario,” Will says. “What we’ve seen is a strategy from Israel to slowly degrade the conditions for life. And part of the way they do that is by targeting medical facilities, targeting medical workers. We recorded over 128 attacks on medical facilities by Israel over the past two weeks, 40 medical workers killed. And we’ve seen this before. We’ve seen this in Gaza, where if they degrade the conditions for life enough, people will be forced to leave.”