I’ve often come across the phrase “the smell of death” and wondered if death truly has a smell.

I used to think it was a metaphor that writers and commentators used when describing scenes of death and massacres, but since the Israeli war on Lebanon began, and I started working as a field journalist on the ground, I’ve come to understand the true meaning and harshness of that phrase.

Yes, death has a smell — a smell that words cannot capture, and a scene that cannot be summed up in a sentence or even an article.

I first inhaled the smell of death in the town of Ayto in the Zgharta district, where Israeli bombardment targeted a building sheltering displaced people from the town of Aitaroun in South Lebanon. This was allegedly to target a Hezbollah member, Ahmad Faqih. Pools of blood covering the ground remain a testament to the Israeli strikes that killed 23 people. Clothes were strewn across nearby trees, bread soaked in blood, and remains scattered in every corner as teams from the Lebanese Red Cross and Civil Defense worked tirelessly to gather them into a single black bag for later identification.

I smelled death in Beirut’s Basta neighborhood after a bombardment, while I was visiting my grandmother. I rushed to the explosion site, where rubble covered bodies, and grieving families hovered near their loved ones.

I smelled death around Beirut’s Governmental Hospital in Jnah when Al-Moqdad neighborhood was bombed, and entire families were wiped out.

I smelled death in Sidon.

Since the start of the Israeli war on Lebanon, especially after the targeting of Beirut’s southern suburb in September, I’ve toured areas hit by airstrikes where many victims have fallen. In those instances, all I smelled was dust and gunpowder left by the intense bombings.

But in Ayto, and afterward, the experience was completely different.

This isn’t the first war I’ve lived through, but it’s the first I’ve experienced as an adult and as a field journalist. During the July War of 2006, I was only eight years old. All I remember are the sounds of warplanes flying low and the sounds of bombing in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Back then, I didn’t have a direct experience of the bombings or the massacres, which were relatively distant from me.

When the Israeli army carried out airstrikes on Basta and Nweiri, I was in Ras Al-Nabaa, just two blocks away from the targeted area. Suddenly, I heard loud explosions followed by the roar of missiles, and for a moment, I thought a missile was going to hit our home and that we would be facing death ourselves.

With each new airstrike, and each field tour the following morning, the scale of the destruction becomes clearer, and the scenes grow increasingly horrifying, especially in densely populated neighborhoods. The residents of these areas, particularly the elderly, repeatedly say they have never witnessed such destruction and massacres, despite being what they call the “generations of war.”

Just minutes before we arrived at the strike site in Ayto, the Lebanese Red Cross team managed to retrieve the body of an infant only a few months old, who had been thrown by the missile from their “safe” home into a parked car outside. At that moment, even the seasoned faces of the medics appeared pale, as the horror of the scene overwhelmed their experience.

I can’t help but think that just moments before that missile hit the house, these families were living in peace. Perhaps they were laughing, or sitting together for lunch, and maybe the infant was playing before a quick nap. These are stories told by the smell of death, by these scattered remains, revealing that these people were not numbers but individuals with names, lives, and memories.

That smell stayed with me even when I returned home. I checked my clothes, thinking they’d absorbed it, and as soon as I got in, I threw them in the wash. My mother asked, “Why the rush?” I answered, “They smell like blood.”

At that moment, I realized the true meaning of the phrase “seeing is different from hearing,” and it really is. The experience is infinitely harsher than words can convey. These events sometimes make me deeply question my profession, especially when I have to interview war victims.

What does any question mean in the face of their immense loss?

Today, 18 years after the July War, we are faced with an even more violent and destructive front. In less than a month, I have experienced things I never encountered in 2006, from the sound of relentless bombing to documenting massacres. This time, the war is different — it is more brutal, unjust, and destructive. We must endure its bitterness and continue documenting these crimes until it ends.