‘We want to be 100% sure’: war-weary Lebanese greet truce with caution

Hours after the US-Iran ceasefire was announced, residents of south Lebanon began to race back to their villages. One man filmed as he drove into the entrance of Harees, his arrival interrupted as the car in front of him suddenly veered off the road. An Israeli armoured vehicle was parked in the middle of the road less than 100 metres ahead; he scrambled to turn around.“It was packed with explosives. I guess they still want to blow things up,” said Abdullah al-Ali, a municipal official in Harees. Ali added that the entrance to the town was blocked off after two other explosive-laden vehicles left by the Israelis were discovered in the area.The Lebanese army and civil defence told people not to return to their villages, warning that the war, which had so far claimed almost 3,800 lives in Lebanon, was not yet over. Their point was punctuated by the Israeli shelling that met people attempting to return to their homes south of the city of Nabatieh, still occupied by Israeli soldiers.It was the third ceasefire declared in Lebanon in less than two months; the fourth in two years. This time, war-weary Lebanese did not greet the apparent truce as they had before, with fingers held up in a V for victory sign, but with a question. Would it last?“How many times has this happened before? I have mixed feelings, there’s joy, I’m excited. But there’s a fear in the back of my head that won’t go away,” said Ghia Hajo, a 25-year-old woman who had been displaced from the town of Abbasieh, just outside of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, during the war.Hajo watched on her phone as videos came in from friends and social media of the long-awaited return to their villages in south Lebanon. She itched to see her own home, which, due to sheer luck, was still standing. But she did not want to return only to be displaced once again – or worse, be met with bombs.“We want to go and not have to leave our bags unpacked. Because we always had our clothes in our bag, ready to evacuate at any moment. We want to be 100% sure,” said Hajo, who was mulling a return once she was assured the situation was safe in Abbasieh.Lebanon’s officials welcomed the ceasefire, which came about on the heels of a greater US-Iran truce they had been informed of via news reports. How it would apply in Lebanon remained unclear.In the hours after the ceasefire was announced, Hezbollah’s attacks entirely stopped; Israeli strikes mostly stopped, with the exception of shelling and two drone strikes on residents who neared villages close to its troops. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said that Israeli troops would not withdraw from the “security zone” in south Lebanon, an area that was declared by its military to include at least 600 sq km (231 sq miles) along the border and in recent weeks had crept up farther north to include the outskirts of Nabatieh.Israel further said that it reserved the right to respond to any Hezbollah attacks, while other officials suggested it retained freedom of movement in Lebanon. Under previous ceasefires in Lebanon, Israel continued to carry out airstrikes in the south of the country at will. Hezbollah said in a statement on Monday that it would not allow this scenario to repeat. Its warnings were backed by Tehran, which had shown that it would not hesitate to strike Israel if it felt red lines in Lebanon were crossed.The fundamental issues which drew Israel and Hezbollah into war remained unsolved. The current round of conflict started when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on 2 March in retaliation for the killing of the then Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel invaded, stating at first that its aim was to destroy Hezbollah, then just to disarm it. It achieved neither.As the day continued, the trickle of cars heading south on Lebanon’s highways grew to a flood. Residents wanted to return to check on their homes, even if only for one day. For some, the act of return was enough; the call to prayer echoed from a minaret and filled the town of al-Sultaniyeh, which for weeks had only heard the sound of explosions.For others, return confirmed their worst fears. One man found his family home flattened by a bomb in the town of Seddiqine. “My house is gone,” was all he managed to choke out. Why or when it was destroyed he did not know – his family’s prolonged displacement had robbed him of an explanation.The war, which lasted just over 100 days, left thousands of homes and shops destroyed, dozens of villages occupied and flattened, more than a million displaced and thousands dead. The question of reconstruction, both material and spiritual, was not yet on the table as it was unclear if the war was really over.To those residents whose homes lay in villages still occupied, many of which were demolished by the Israelis, the war would not end until their land was free.“We miss our villages, but our dear villages became a sorry sight, bulldozed, destroyed systematically,” said Ahmad Abu Taan, a 56-year-old construction supply shop owner from Taybeh, a village destroyed by the Israelis. “But we will return, hopefully, under a deal, under a truce. And when we do, then I’ll tell you how I feel,” he said over the phone, the buzz of an Israeli drone overhead punctuating his speech.