ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

As the threat of war between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah grows, people in Lebanon are trying to go about their daily lives.

RAMI RAJAY: Just like a constant state of expecting the volcano to erupt.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

That's Rami Rajeh, a resident of Beirut. Over the last two days, thousands of communication devices belonging to members of Hezbollah became small bombs, exploding almost simultaneously across Lebanon.

RAJEH: It's surreal. When you first hear the news or, you know, you get all these WhatsApp videos and breaking news snippets from here and there, at first, you think this is some science fiction.

SHAPIRO: Since then, Rajeh says there's been a heightened sense of fear.

RAJEH: My neighbor stopped me and said, do you think they have a select-all button where they can just, like, do it to all of us too? And so, you know, this dark humor pops up.

SUMMERS: And today, as the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a public address, Israeli jets flew over Beirut.

RAJEH: Today when the sonic boom went up, it was pretty loud. So we had to explain why we wanted our son to move his seat and sit a little bit farther away from the window.

SHAPIRO: Despite the threat of war, Rajeh says the people he knows are trying to cope the best they can.

RAJEH: I think just about everybody I know limits their habits and customs and whatever they do on a day-to-day basis to the necessary. For example - I don't know - spending a weekend in the mountainside or getaways are few and far in between, and nobody's really in the mood to plan these kinds of get-togethers or - so it's just limited to, you know, the basic elements of life and survival. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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