Editor's note: Danielle Dellorto is a senior producer in CNN's Medical Unit. She and Dr. Sanjay Gupta traveled to Lebanon this month to meet refugees who have been forced from their homes in nearby Syria by the violence there. Here's her look at how the trip affected her.
Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (CNN) -- I never imagined I would find myself in Lebanon, on the outskirts of the brutal civil war in Syria. As a 32-year-old woman from Chicago, I didn't know what to expect.
When I got on the plane last week, it seemed that U.S. or allied airstrikes on Syria were imminent, and honestly, it was pretty scary.
But the fear I felt about the possibility of airstrikes was put into perspective when I met 7-year-old Abdel in a Syrian refugee camp on the Lebanese border with Syria.
I will never forget the first time I looked into his eyes. The sadness and fear I saw there were years beyond his age, reflecting the extreme violence and horror he has witnessed -- sights and sounds of war that most of the world will only see in the movies.
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For the seven days I was there, most of the kids in the camp followed us in a gaggle, circling us at times, giggling and practicing their English -- "hello" and "thank you."
They loved to see their images on my camera's display screen after I took their picture.
Young Syrian refugees from Aleppo sit with their mother on the steps of a bank in Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday, September 18. The United Nations refugee agency says the number of Syrians who have fled their war-ravaged country has risen to more than 2 million.
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Not Abdel. He stood off to the side, only glancing occasionally at the other kids following our crew around. He lingered nearby most of the day, but didn't talk to me or anyone else.
When I sat down on a curb, I motioned for to him to join me. I think I saw him smirk.
We just sat at first. He didn't talk. Then, via my translator sitting beside me, I asked Abdel if he liked Tweety Bird -- the cartoon character on the T-shirt he was wearing. He shrugged, saying he had never seen that cartoon.
They didn't have a television in his two-bedroom home in Syria, he told me. And of course there's not one in the 10-by-10-foot cement-floor refugee tent he shares with his mom and two brothers in the camp.
In Syria, he went to school -- first grade, he proudly tells me -- and played outside with his friends for fun.
But that was before the war. I asked Abdel if it still felt safe to play outside in Syria. He shook his head no, and held out his misshapen right arm. He broke it running from a gunfight, he said. It looks as though he didn't receive any medical care for his injury -- the bones healed so out of place, he can't bend his arm all the way or lay it out straight.
It wasn't Abdel's injury that led his family to leave its home for an uncertain future, a life as refugees. It was an explosion, just weeks later, that left his 4-year-old brother severely burned. Abdel's dad told them to flee. Get to the border until the violence subsides, he said.
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Abdel's father stayed behind to work and protect the family's modest home, a scenario common to many of the refugees I met.
That was four months ago. Abdel now carries the title of "man of the house." The worry in his eyes is constant. The weight he is carrying is so heavy I felt it just sitting next to him.
Abdel now sleeps on the cement floor of the family's tent, in a strange place with none of the familiarity of home. He showed me the virtually empty living space, containing a plastic chair, a few blankets, a bucket.
His baby brother is extremely malnourished. Abdel himself is painfully thin. His last meal was yesterday, he said. He ate rice.
Meeting Abdel and hundreds of other refugees in just this one camp and hearing their stories make me fear the effect that potential U.S. or allied airstrikes would have. I worry that more fighting will only lead to more pain for children like Abdel.
The numbers are already horrific: More than 100,000 Syrians have been killed -- many of them women and children. In the latest atrocity, as many as 1,400 died last month in a chemical weapons attack, allegedly by the government.
I volunteered to travel to the Syrian border to help CNN tell the stories of the people who've been impacted by this wrenching conflict. The violence has pushed more than 6 million Syrians from their homes to other cities inside Syria or out of the country -- and more than half of the refugees, some 4 million, are under the age of 17.
When I met them, and heard the horrors they've lived through, it made me see that the human consequences of the war are compounding. Would outside military action really stop that?
While limited airstrikes might reduce the risk of another chemical attack, they might also spur more fighting and violence within Syria. It could take what's left of Abdel's home, and maybe even take away his dad.
But then again, the same could happen without international intervention.
I don't know what the solution is. But I know there has to be a way to help Abdel and the thousands of others like him.
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Two Syrian refugees sit on a street in Beirut on September 18.
Young Syrian refugees sit with their father as he prepares coffee to sell on a street in Beirut on September 18.
A Syrian refugee boy practices taekwondo at Zaatari refugee camp, near Mafraq, Jordan, on Tuesday, September 17.
A young Syrian girl washes a pan at the Atme refugee camp along the Turkish border on September 17.
Syrian refugee children watch Korean and Syrian taekwondo instructors during training at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on September 17.
A Syrian woman carries her baby across the border into Turkey at the Cilvegozu border gate in Reyhanli, Hatay, Turkey, on Thursday, September 12.
A Syrian girl stands with her mother in a makeshift tent as they wait to enter an official refugee camp at the Oncupinar border gate in Kilis, Turkey, on September 12.
A Syrian girl eats a tomato at a temporary refugee camp in the eastern Lebanese town of al-Faour in the Bekaa valley on Wednesday, September 11.
A Syrian refugee girl drinks water from a hose near a temporary refugee camp in an eastern Lebanese town on Wednesday, September 11.
Lower Saxony's Commissioner for Migration and Participation Doris Schroeder-Koempf, along with German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, center, greet the first of many Syrian refugees that have been granted temporary asylum in Germany on September 11.
A refugee boy sits on the ground at a temporary refugee camp in the eastern Lebanese town of Al-Faour, Bekaa, on September 11.
Syrian refugee children run near their tents at a temporary refugee camp near the Lebanese border with Syria on September 11.
Mustafa Abu Bekir, who was wounded while fighting with the Free Syrian Army, smiles as he meets relatives after crossing the Cilvegozu gate border in Turkey's Hatay province on Monday, September 9.
A Syrian refugee family of 26 people shares one room in the Eminonu district in Istanbul, Turkey, on September 9. The family fled Syria seven months ago.
Two Syrian refugee children sit outside a house where they currently live in Istanbul on September 9.
A refugee money-changer exchanges currency at the main market at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Jordanian city of Mafraq on Sunday, September 8.
A woman from an Alawite neighborhood in Syria holds her son on September 8 at the Pir Sultan Abdal foundation in Istanbul, which belongs to the Turkish Alawite community. Around 2000 Syrian Alawite refugees came to Istanbul in recent months to escape violence in North Syria.
A Syrian refugee displays second-hand shoes for sale at the main market at the Zaatari Refugee Camp close to the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, on September 8.
Syrian refugees arrive at the Pir Sultan Abdal foundation in Istanbul on September 8.
Syrian refugee workers fix cart wheels at their shop at the Zaatari Refugee Camp on September 8. Jordan has 515,000 registered Syrian refugees.
A Syrian boy sits beside his family's belongings on Friday, September 6, as they wait for a vehicle to pick them up after entering Turkey from the Turkish border gate of Cilvegozu.
Syrian refugees who failed to find shelters in a refugee camp eat and rest by the side of a road a few meters away from the Turkish-Syrian border on Thursday, September 5.
Syrian refugees arrive at the Turkish border gate of Cilvegozu on Thursday, September 5.
Syrian refugees gather in the village of Salkin after crossing the Syrian-Turkish border on September 5.
A young Syrian refugee boy sells canned tuna and other food items in the Zaatari Refugee Camp on September 4.
Children run past tents at a Syrian refugee camp in Yayladagi, Turkey, on September 3.
A child pulls a suitcase as Syrian refugees arrive at the Cilvegozu crossing gate of Reyhanli in Turkey's Hatay province on Saturday, August 31.
A family arrives from Syria at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on Friday, August 30.
A Syrian girl stands behind a fence at Bulgaria's shelter near Lyubimets on August 28. More than 3,100 immigrants -- half of them Syrians -- have crossed into Bulgaria from neighboring Turkey this year, doubling their numbers compared with 2012 and and causing Bulgaria's few temporary accommodation facilities to overflow.
A wounded Syrian child is treated at the Israeli Ziv hospital on Wednesday, August 28, in the northern town of Safed, Israel. About 140 wounded Syrians, who have been fighting across the border from Israel, have been treated in Israeli hospitals since the beginning of the Syrian Civil war.
A Syrian-Kurdish man carries a mattress at sunset at the Quru Gusik refugee camp, east of Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on Tuesday, August 27. More than 50,000 Syrian refugees have crossed into Iraq's Kurdish region in less than two weeks as authorities rush to house them in more permanent camps.
Syrian refugees listen to safety instructions at the Quru Gusik refugee camp on Saturday, August 24.
Syrian refugees at the Zaatari refugee camp on Thursday, July 18, near the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the Jordanian-Syrian border.
The expanse of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan as seen from an aerial view on July 18. The camp was opened on July 28, 2012, and is home to more than 130,000 refugees.
Syrian refugee children walk in the Bab al-Salam refugee camp in Syria's northern city of Azaz on Monday, July 15.
A boy walks with jugs of water on June 27 in a neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon, with a high concentration of Syrian refugees. Since January, the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has more than tripled.
Syrian refugees stand with their belongings on June 20, World Refugee Day, at Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.
A Syrian woman and child look out of a refugee camp window on June 20 in Alman, Lebanon, after fleeing their hometown in Idlib province, Syria.
A child, whose family fled violence in Syria, stands at the Arsal refugee camp on June 14 in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
A woman uses a fence at the Domiz refugee camp near Kohuk, Iraq, to dry laundry on May 29.
A boy carries a jug for water at the Maliber al-Salam refugee camp on April 28. The camp, located near the Turkish boarder, houses internally displaced Syrian families.
A makeshift refugee camp is seen near Syria's border with Turkey.
Row after row of temporary shelters fill the Maiber al-Salam refugee camp in Syria's Aleppo province, near the Turkish border on April 17.
Refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria arrive February 18 at the Jordanian border.
A Syrian girl stands at the entrance of a makeshift home near ruins in the ancient city of Serjilla in northwestern Syria on February 11. About half of Syria's refugees are children.
More than 400,000 people have fled Syria this year to countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. The Zaatari refugee camp is in Jordan, near the Syrian border.
A refugee collects apples and some bread February 10 at the Azaz refugee camp along the Syrian-Turkish border. Turkey has spent more than $600 million setting up 17 refugee camps, with more under construction.
Clothes dry at the Qah refugee camp near the Turkish border on January 31. Many Syrians are forced to flee with few or no belongings.
A man shows off his pet birds as new Syrian refugees arrive at the International Organization for Migration at the Zaatari refugee camp on January 30.
A refugee child gets a haircut at a makeshift barbershop at the Azaz refugee camp on February 19.
Syrian children gather around women washing in the Zaatari refugee camp on January 31.
A refugee visits a clinic with his child at the Azaz refugee camp on February 10.
Syrians put up tents at the Zaatari refugee camp on January 30.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees supplied tents in Al-Marj, in the eastern Lebanese Bekaa Valley. Some families have endured frigid weather in tent camps or struggle to pay for shelter.
A Syrian girl looks through the window of a bus where she has lived with her family for the past eight months at a refugee camp in Bab al-Salam on the Syria-Turkey border on February 28.
A Syrian jumps across the border between the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain and Ceylanpinar in Turkey's Sanliurfa province on November 10, 2012.
A Syrian refugee waits November 27, 2012, at a hairdresser's shop, where refugees can also receive training, inside the Oncupinar camp in Kilis, southern Turkey.
A Syrian boy attends school in the Turkish town of Kilis on December 17, 2012.
At a makeshift refugee area, just half a mile from the Syrian border, two young girls colored pictures and sang songs. They both left Syria without their parents.
More than a million Syrian children were forced to leave their homes and move into refugee camps like this one, located in Zahle, Lebanon. Many of the child refugees are put to work on farms nearby, where they earn just $2 a day.
According to aid group workers, the sheriff in this Lebanon border town near Syria charges the refugees who set up shelter in the dirt here $100 a month.
This 22-year-old mother fled Syria with her children four months ago, leaving her husband behind. The burn scars visible on her 4-year-old's arm are the result of an explosion on the streets of her hometown of Homs. Her children are much safer now, but she questions her decision to leave. At the camp, they all sleep on a cement floor, and her 8-month-old son is now so severely malnourished, it's stunting his growth.
Families seeking refuge in Lebanon are faced with the challenge of not being wanted. The government does not sanction any official refugee camps or assist with fixed water facilities or sanitation systems in camps. Refugees tell CNN they want to go home, back to Syria, but are afraid for the safety of their families.
Refugees line up for a free doctor checkup at a camp half a mile from the Syria border. The children here live in filthy conditions. No surprise, the doctors from this UNICEF mobile clinic say they treat hundreds of kids a day for lice, scabies, malnutrition and respiratory infections.
These Syrian children smile, despite the horrors of life in the refugee camp. After fleeing the violence of their home country, refugees say they are not wanted in their adopted one.
A Syrian looking for safety crosses the border into Lebanon every 15 seconds. Most of the children can be found without their parents, who stay in Syria to work and protect their homes. This boy, age 9, walks with his grandmother back to their tent. He told Gupta's producer, Danielle Dellorto, that he asks every day if they can go back home to Syria.
Forced from the comforts of their homes, into often filthy refugee settlements in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, these Syrian children are a lesson in resilience.
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