Mais al-Jabal has always been an elusive dream for me. Born in 1983, I waited until the year 2000 to set foot there for the first time, on the day of liberation, when flags waved triumphantly in celebration of the land and its people.

Mais al-Jabal became the subject of my first published article in the school newspaper. I missed school that day to join my father and brother on a journey to the liberated South, to Mais al-Jabal. I remember finding the large pond, which my father had often told me about, completely dry. Yet, the fig tree awaited us, as did the warm welcome of the villagers. After all, I am the daughter of Abu Khalil and the granddaughter of Abu Ibrahim and Umm Ibrahim. My grandfather was known for his generosity, and my grandmother for her resilience and humor—she raised fifteen children.

Despite this, Mais al-Jabal remained a distant dream, challenging to reach. Sporadic visits allowed me to build a relationship that gradually deepened, shaped by my father’s memories, his parents’ stories from before liberation, and my own carefully selected memories from after. Mais is present in many of my interests, especially my fascination with antiques, as people from my hometown are known for trading carpets and furniture, particularly rare, vintage pieces.

Though I was born and raised in Beirut, I have always introduced myself as the daughter of Mais al-Jabal, especially when accused of stubbornness. Being from Mais al-Jabal spares me from explanations or apologies. “Where does this stubbornness come from? Either Houla or Mais,” the saying goes. I can’t resist this stubbornness; it’s in my genes, my roots, and the harsh contours of my face. “That’s just how we are,” with our distinct, stern features.

Before liberation, Mais al-Jabal was a destination for the dead, a place for burial. Our relationship with it was limited to the memories of our grandparents and the rituals of death. But after “Resistance and Liberation,” it became a place to settle, where families reunite, and cousins return to build homes with money earned abroad. It’s also a place of rooting for residents—my father’s only property is in Mais, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. It may seem traditional, but belonging to a village provides a strange sense of reassurance and security. I believe it’s the primal sense of belonging to the land, sharing it, and trusting its bounty. To eat from our land, to define ourselves through our land, to need no other way to introduce ourselves.

The July 2006 War added a new aura and reverence to Mais al-Jabal, as its name appeared in the news, and the media covered the fierce battles fought by the resistance to repel the enemy. They succeeded. Mais bore a larger share of martyrs; this time, destruction touched only a few homes, with scenes of ruin that were all too familiar. Returning to Mais in 2006 was a declaration that we had preserved our land and would never return to the so-called “border strip.”

But this war, now called the “War of Support,” is different, hard to describe.

Mais has once again become part of the “border strip” villages, and in September 2024, there was talk of ground battles between Hezbollah and the Israeli army in Mais al-Jabal, as if we were witnessing a new saga. Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari had a special segment about the Mais al-Jabal battles in a video posted on the army’s social media on October 1.

The war’s trajectory has taken a different turn, one we refused to believe despite all the warnings and premonitions, like the scenes of truck convoys when shop owners began evacuating on August 29.

In October, things escalated. Social media circulated images of the Israeli flag being raised in Mais al-Jabal, and we were faced with scenes of booby-trapping as the village of Mhaybeb, just under three kilometers from Mais al-Jabal, was blown up in mid-October.

Thus, Mais al-Jabal entered a phase of booby-trapping and demolition. Whole neighborhoods were seized, with 28 homes obliterated in a single push of a button just days ago. Three days ago, Mais al-Jabal Mayor Abdul Moneim Shoukair, in a statement to AFP, pointed out that a video circulating showed “explosions around the government hospital at the village’s outskirts,” adding that “70 percent of Mais al-Jabal has been destroyed,” accounting for over two thousand homes.

Yesterday, he appealed to the international community to protect Mais al-Jabal’s government hospital, which had been booby-trapped by the enemy. Social media accounts even shared reviews of the hospital written by Israeli soldiers on Google Maps, mocking it as “closed, non-functional, and with poor service.”

Yes, what happened, happened. We cannot predict the hours ahead, let alone the days. What has happened and is happening to Mais al-Jabal is beyond what the mind can comprehend or the heart can bear, far beyond the duality of defeat and victory that we sometimes get caught up in. In Mais al-Jabal’s case, victory itself is too shy to declare itself victorious over the land. We are used to triumphing for the land and its people. What happened does not resemble defeat in any way either; defeat has a shape you can interact with, assess, and perhaps debate.

But with Mais, there is only one perspective. What happened is neither a victory, nor would anyone dare to describe it as such, and it is not a defeat either. It is an evaporation of everything—of what pulses and what doesn’t, of the living and the dead, of homes and graves, of crops and stones. It is a complete withdrawal of life and everything we know of it, through booby-trapping, detonations, and evaporation, then the enemy army’s celebration. Watching videos of Israeli soldiers celebrating the disappearance of large parts of Mais al-Jabal—parts that turned into clouds and joined the sky’s procession, never to return.

Sometimes, I don’t understand the headlines. “In seconds… the Israeli army destroys an entire neighborhood.” Seconds? It takes them less than one. The posted video testifies to that. It is a process of vaporization in less than seconds, turning an entire town into smoke—my town. Not transforming it into ruins but into a void on the map, and in the heart as well.