Channel 13’s Tamar Ish Shalom spoke with Abdullah Al-Muhammad, a Syrian man who has attracted attention worldwide with a video in which he is seen teaching his daughter, Salwa, to laugh at bombs as they explode nearby.

Al-Muhammad explained the rationale behind the video. “I wanted to get this story out, and show how I deal with the issue of explosions. I deal with it in an irregular way, as others do.”

“This matter is maybe only being publicized for the first time in the media in any country, that’s why it has caused such a stir.”

He said that there was only so long that he could distract his daughter from the reality of what was actually happening, because “later Salwa will grow up and understand everything.”

“I only hope that, Inshallah, by the time Salwa gets to an age at which she understands, the war, explosions and aerial attacks will end. In the meantime, I don’t have a backup plan.”

Syrian troops, supported by Russian warplanes, have been advancing since December against the last rebel bastions in the Idlib and Aleppo provinces. Al-Muhammad noted that the situation of Syrian civilians caught in the midst of the fighting is “very, very, very bad, worse than what is being reported in the media.”

“In world media, it is reported that there are terrorists here in Idlib, right? And that Russia is bombing the terrorists, and that Bashar Al-Assad is attacking the terrorists. No. As if there are no civilians, as if civilians aren’t harmed.

“This whole thing is false. Our situation is very bad. We are cramped into a very narrow area on the Syrian border. We don’t know where to go. Our future is unclear.”