After enjoying a quiet night things warmed up during the morning. We think that Hezbollah missiles, which were the first to hit Haifa, were fired from a lemon orchard at the bottom of the hill, about 2 km from the house. There was a very rapid response, with four Israeli missiles hitting the location, but by then the missile launcher must have been moved on. Anticipating more reprisals, we took refuge for a while in a neighbour's basement, which was in a less prominent position on the hillside than our house. We returned home early in the afternoon when things were generally quiet. Israel started to issue warnings to people in the south to go north, as they were planning retaliation against Hezbollah for rocket attacks on Haifa. A number of people we know in Tyre decided to take this advice and went to Sidon, the Chouf area and even Beirut. We decided to stay.

In the middle of war, we still had advertisements during the evening local TV news promoting the speed with which Libanpost would deliver your mail and the merits of Dewar's whisky.

The sound of aircraft, presumably on their way further north, kept us awake during the night from about 1.00 to 6.00 a.m. There was still some bombing activity in the area in the morning, but this seemed to be very targeted and not heavy.

Once again, we went into town during the morning. It was very quiet, there were only a few shops open and those that were had only limited goods on the shelves.

By lunchtime, it seemed that activity by both sides had reduced and there was no more anti-aircraft fire from the Lebanese army camp. However, hopes that the lull was a prelude to a ceasefire proved wrong. If anything, the situation started to get worse later in the day, with bombings on the outskirts of Tyre and at Jounieh Port. Although various embassies were talking about evacuation of their citizens, there was little, at that time, they could do to move them out because of the Israeli naval blockade and the serious risks involved in travelling by road. Syria seemed to be letting anyone who could reach the border in, regardless of nationality or visa rules, but getting to the border involved a difficult and dangerous journey.

It was becoming clear that there was not going to be a quick solution and we had to take stock of our food and fuel situation. At the start of hostilities, we had a well-stocked freezer and almost a full tank of generator fuel. As there had been no mains electricity since the first day, we had been rationing our use of the generator and now decided to reduce further its use until we could find a source of fuel.

Today, we drank the last bottle of red wine. We still had several bottles of white in stock, and no shortage of gin.

From about 7.00 a.m. there was the continual sound of planes overhead, but quite high and we could see Israeli warships offshore, presumably to enforce the naval blockade that they had introduced. Between 9.30 and 10.30 a.m., three missiles landed in the area, two in the lemon orchards, about 2km bellow the house and one in a valley behind the house. The missile that landed below us left a small crater in the road, and burned a few trees, but the road remained passable.

We went to town when the situation was quiet and found more shops open than on the previous day. The queues outside the bakeries were shorter and there were quite a few people on the streets. We were able to get more cash from an ATM, increasing our supply in case it would be required for expenses or evacuation.

During the afternoon there was the continued noise of aircraft overhead and repeated anti-aircraft fire from a Lebanese army camp nearby which was, as usual, totally ineffective. During the evening Hezbollah managed to damage quite seriously an Israeli warship that was shelling Beirut airport, with the loss of four members of the crew. After that, we never again saw an Israeli warship off Tyre.

We were awoken at about 1.00 a.m. by the sound of helicopters. Subsequently there were explosions to the east of the house of the house and a small one in the orchards between the house and the sea. The air raid ceased within an hour and the rest of the night was quiet.

At 8.00 a.m., there was still no electricity and we decided that we should ration the use of the generator to conserve fuel while still trying to keep the contents on the freezer frozen and enabling us to watch the news on television. Between generator sessions, we had a battery radio to keep us up to date on developments.

The early morning news included the bombing of all three runways at Beirut airport and its subsequent closure. I had been planning to fly out the next day to Dubai and Dar es Salaam and contacted the airline, who suggested that they could re-book me from Damascus on Saturday, assuming that it would be possible to get there by road on Friday.

We decided to go into town to get money, petrol and groceries. Most shops were closed, including the Co-op and Al Janoub Supermarket, but Spinney's was open and the shelves still well stocked. There were generally long queues outside bakeries and those food shops that were open. All the banks were closed and the ATM at our bank was not working. We were, however, able to get cash from an ATM at another bank and took as much as was allowed by the system.

Throughout the afternoon, we could hear the sound of distant, and sometimes not so distant, aircraft, anti-aircraft fire and explosions.

Having received an email from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advising British citizens to keep in touch with the embassy, I phoned them to seek advice about travelling by road from Tyre to Damascus next day. Their advice was not to try, as they expected the Beirut-Damascus road to be bombed. Two hours later it was.

During the evening news on a local television station there was film of a Lebanese cabinet meeting; I could not help noticing that one of the members had a Solitaire game open on the computer screen in front of him.

A quiet night in Tyre

About 9.30 on the morning of 12 July 2006 I was driving from my house near Tyre to the town. As I left the house, I turned on the car radio to hear BBC World Service reporting that Hezbollah had kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on the border. Almost simultaneously, there was a loud explosion somewhere to the north; it turned out to be the Israeli's bombing the bridge over the Litani River at Qasmieh on the coast road about 5 km north of the house. I decided to continue into town and do what I had to do; after this, I returned home, where we started monitoring the situation on various local and satellite news channels. Although there was Israeli bombing during the day, it was not in our immediate area. At about 8.30 p.m., following a bombing in the lemon orchards some 2 km below the house, the mains power was cut, never to be restored until 10 days after the cease-fire. It turned out that the cut was because of damage to cables caused by the nearby bombing.