Umm Hassan’s family sought solace on a south Lebanon beach, hoping to escape the escalating cross-border violence amid the Gaza conflict, AFP reports.

Only a few days earlier, an Israeli fighter jet broke the sound barrier over their inland village of Srifa, which has come under Israeli bombardment in recent months, 60-year-old Umm Hassan told AFP.

The thunderous sonic boom upset the baby so much that he began sobbing, then laughing, then sobbing again, for an hour and a half, clearly in distress. “I called the doctor, who said it was a fit of hysteria,” the grandmother said.

“We take him to the riverside, and to the sea, so he can forget,” she said, wearing a loose, flowery shirt.

Umm Hassan was among hundreds of beachgoers — many from the country’s south, where Hezbollah largely holds sway — who were trying to disconnect from news of conflict at the beach in Tyre at the weekend.