"We have no other choice": Lebanese try to return to their homes, reduced to rubble

BeirutThe breeze barely manages to soften the tension that can be felt in the improvised camps next to the Beirut promenade. Under tarpaulins held up with ropes and scraps of wood, dozens of families continue here, a few meters from the sea, although the ceasefire has been in effect for hours. No one is dismantling anything, yet. Few seem willing to believe that this time it will last.

Some watch the horizon in silence. Others slowly gather their belongings, but without haste. "It's not the first time they've said it's over", says a man, sitting in a plastic chair. The mix of relief and distrust is palpable. In this car park turned settlement, for many the war continues to be still too close to consider it over.

This is the case of Ali, a mechanic from Nabatieh, who has been sleeping here for weeks. He hasn't gone back. Nor is he clear when he will. On his mobile phone, he shows recent photographs of his neighborhood: open facades, shops reduced to rubble, unrecognizable streets. "How are we going to go back to this?", he asks. Then he hesitates for a second. "And yet... we will go back. But not because we trust. Because we have no other option".

Despite this, not everyone is waiting. A displaced family from Kafra insists they will not abandon their village for a second time. “If we return, it is to stay,” says the widow of a fighter, convinced that the ceasefire guarantees nothing. The decision, more than an act of trust, is a form of defiance.

If I had had a car, I would have left at midnight yesterday, explains Kabayse, as she prepares to return home with her family. “I have a two-year-old son and a six-month-old daughter. We lived in Mrayje and arrived here on the second day of the war. Now is the time to return,” she assures, as she continues to gather her belongings.

Road collapse due to the return home

From early in the morning, long lines of cars have begun to leave the capital heading south. On the highway connecting Sidon with Tyre, traffic has become completely jammed. Vehicles loaded with mattresses, bags, and canisters are moving at a snail's pace in a return that is as massive as it is uncertain. They know it won't last, but they want to go back to their homes, even if only for a few days. Some just want to see what's left of their homes, what's left of their lives.

This flow depends on a key point: the Qasmiyeh bridge, over the Litani River. Bombed again on Thursday morning by Israeli aviation, the crossing was blocked. But at dawn, military units deployed to the site and began emergency work to fill the crater opened by the impact. Hours later, the coastal route was partially reopened, allowing vehicles to pass, although the bridge continues to be a bottleneck, far from fully operational. The ceasefire, negotiated with an initial duration of ten days, has thus arrived amidst broken roads and an infrastructure at its limit. On the ground, the truce coexists with a much more unstable reality.

Destruction and attacks that are still ongoing

Meanwhile, in Tyre, rescue teams continued working on Friday morning among the rubble of three buildings destroyed in a bombing on the seafront, just as the truce came into effect. So far, three bodies have been recovered, but between six and eight people remain missing under the remains. Violence, in fact, has not stopped entirely. In several southern towns, new incidents have been registered that Lebanese authorities consider violations of the ceasefire. In Kounin, artillery fire and bursts of automatic weapons have hit a team of paramedics, leaving several injured. Further east, in Khiam, Israeli forces have blown up homes, a continuation of military operations on the ground.

Even where there are no bombings, the danger persists. A teenager has died from the explosion of undetonated ammunition left by previous attacks, a reminder that the ceasefire does not erase the immediate traces of war.

In the southern suburbs of Beirut, the return is even more cautious. In neighborhoods like Chiyah, heavily hit in recent weeks, some residents return only sporadically, to retrieve belongings or check the state of their homes. The intensity of the bombings has once again brought to the table the so-called Dahiyeh doctrine, based on the use of disproportionate force against urban areas linked to Hezbollah. A logic that does not distinguish between civilian infrastructure and military targets, and which seeks to impose deterrence through devastation.

But not even that has completely broken the bond with the territory. A woman over eighty years old, displaced in a shelter in the Sports City, has briefly returned to her apartment before going back to the reception center. Because, even if the front has calmed down at times, on the ground everything suggests that this truce does not end the war, but barely puts it on hold.