As bombs rained down on Beirut's southern suburbs, Ali Hussaini faced a heart-wrenching challenge: how to explain what was happening to his two partially deaf daughters.

"They would ask me what is going on? Why are we running away?" Hussaini said.

"When the bombs hit, I would try to move them away from the sound, but when they saw their siblings who can hear run towards us ... they would be puzzled," he said.