Thousands of Lebanese displaced by the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants returned home on Wednesday as a ceasefire took hold, driving cars stacked with personal belongings and defying warnings from Lebanese and Israeli troops to stay away from some areas.
If it endures, the ceasefire would end nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated in mid-September into all-out war and threatened to pull Hezbollah’s patron Iran and Israel’s closest ally, the United States, into a broader conflagration.
The truce could give some reprieve to the 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by the fighting and the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along the border.
“They were a nasty and ugly 60 days,” said Mohammed Kaafarani, 59, who was displaced from the Lebanese village of Bidias. “We reached a point where there was no place to hide.”
The U.S.- and France-brokered deal, approved by Israel late Tuesday, calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border.
Thousands of additional Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor compliance.
Israel says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah should it violate the terms of the deal.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon in the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials.
A woman who returned from Beirut to her home in Qana, in Lebanon’s south, says her family plans to stay after a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hezbollah. ‘Even if they gave me a castle in Beirut, I wouldn’t give up my house here.’
Hezbollah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, in support of the Palestinian militant group. Fighting escalated in September, with massive Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon and an Israeli ground invasion of the country’s south.
The deal would not address the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, but U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday said his administration would make another push in the coming days to try to renew efforts for a deal there.
Among those returning home Wednesday was Zahi Hijazi, a 67-year-old who originally hails from southern Lebanon but had been living in Beirut’s suburbs for decades.
“Our life savings…. All this destruction,” said Hijazi, as he stepped into an apartment littered with shattered glass and broken furniture.
“I want to live. This is my house, it’s 40 years old. Every corner in the house, everything in this house, means something to me.”
The World Bank has said at least 100,000 housing units across Lebanon have been damaged or destroyed by the hostilities.
Quiet takes hold
Hours before the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect, Israel launched broad strikes that shook the Lebanese capital Beirut and a volley of rockets from Hezbollah set off air raid sirens across a large swath of northern Israel.
But after it took effect, quiet appeared to take hold, prompting waves of Lebanese to head home.
Israel’s Arabic military spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned displaced Lebanese not to return to their villages in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese military asked the displaced returning to southern Lebanon to avoid front-line villages and towns near the border where Israeli troops are still present until they withdraw.
But some videos circulating on social media show displaced Lebanese defying these calls and returning to villages in the south near the coastal city of Tyre. Israeli troops were still present in parts of southern Lebanon after Israel launched a ground invasion in October.
On the highway linking Beirut with south Lebanon, thousands of people drove south with their belongings and mattresses tied on top of their cars. Traffic was gridlocked at the northern entrance of the port city of Sidon.
Residents will return to vast destruction wrought by the Israeli military during its campaign, which flattened villages where the military said it found vast weapons caches and infrastructure it says was meant to launch an Oct. 7-style attack on northern Israel.
‘Warms my heart,’ says man in Gaza
In Gaza, Palestinians said they were happy to hear about the ceasefire in Lebanon, with many optimistic that it could lead to a ceasefire in their homeland.
“I feel happy for them … it was overwhelming for me and heartbreaking that people in Lebanon they went back to their homes safely,” Ghada Al-Kurd told CBC News Wednesday in Deir El-Balah in central Gaza.
Another resident echoed the same sentiment.
“We really don’t want anyone across the globe to feel this sort of pain and misery that they have been going through,” Bakr Abed said.
“We hope that this will usher a ceasefire deal here for us and that all of those people who have been internally displaced for the past 14 months will be able to go back to their houses and that they can re-gain a sort of life that they have been deprived of.”
Some feared Israel would be more heavy handed with Gaza now that its forces were freed up from fighting Hezbollah.
“The situation will be worse, because the pressure will be more on Gaza,” said Mamdouh Yonis, who currently lives in Khan Younis.
Palestinians in central Gaza expressed happiness for their neighbours in Lebanon Wednesday as they returned to their homes in the south, just hours after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect. Some say they’re optimistic the same could happen in Gaza after more than 13 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon was “the first ray of hope” in the regional conflict after months of escalation. He reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“It is essential that those who signed the ceasefire commitment respect it in full,” he said in a short televised statement during a visit to his native Lisbon, adding that the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon was ready to monitor the ceasefire.
Some Israelis concerned about deal
In Israel, the mood was far more subdued, with displaced Israelis concerned that the deal did not go far enough to rein in Hezbollah and that it did not address Gaza and the hostages still held there.
“I think it is still not safe to return to our homes because Hezbollah is still close to us,” said Eliyahu Maman, an Israeli displaced from the northern city of Kyriat Shmona, which was hit hard by the months of fighting.
Some 50,000 people have been displaced from a string of cities, towns and villages along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
U.S. President Joe Biden says Israel and Hezbollah have approved a ceasefire deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the truce will allow Israel to replenish supplies, focus on Iran, and intensify its campaign against Hamas in Gaza, but warns any violation of the deal will warrant an immediate attack in response.
Noy Friedman, who was displaced from the town of Shlomi to the city of Haifa, said she wouldn’t feel safe in her hometown. “I am also not ready for my family to return to Shlomi,” said Friedman.
The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel, more than half civilians, as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
A significant return of the displaced to their communities, many of which have suffered extensive damage from rocket fire, could take months.
Israel to appeal ICC arrest warrants over Gaza warfare
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel has informed the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it will appeal against arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct of the Gaza war.
Netanyahu also said that U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham had updated him “on a series of measures he is promoting in the U.S. Congress against the International Criminal Court and against countries that would co-operate with it.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last Thursday for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas military leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in its war in Gaza.
