Every Ramadan, Hussein’s grandmother cooks him fatayer, a savory pastry stuffed with cheese or meat and baked in an oven. This year, she replaced the filling with grass and cooked the dish on a fire of burning plastic. “I promise you, it tasted better than it sounds,” Hussein told me last week, just after he broke his fast.

Hussein, whose name I have changed to protect his safety, lives in Madaya, a small town just outside Damascus. It’s one of a few rebel-held enclaves near the Syrian capital, and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group allied with Syria’s president, has besieged it for a year.…  Seguir leyendo »