Displaced families head back to southern Lebanon after ceasefire with Israel

A fragile calm has settled over parts of Lebanon as a 10-day ceasefire brokered by the United States took hold between Israel and Hezbollah.

Thousands of displaced families have begun the journey home — even as uncertainty, destruction and Israeli warnings against going back to parts of southern Lebanon clouded their return.

By early morning, cars were backed up for miles on the route leading south to the damaged Qasmiyeh bridge over the Litani River, a key crossing linking the southern coastal city of Tyre to the north.

Vehicles piled high with mattresses, suitcases and salvaged belongings crept forward through a single reopened lane, hastily repaired after an Israeli air strike just a day earlier.

Drivers heading back to their villages along coastal highways cheered each other, flashed victory signs and exchanged blessings.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war displaced more than a million people. Despite warnings from Lebanese officials that they should not immediately attempt to return to their homes, many began moving toward southern Lebanon in the hours after the ceasefire was declared. The truce appeared to be largely holding overnight.

Israel and Hezbollah have fought several wars and have been fighting on and off since the day after the start of the Gaza war.

Israel and Lebanon reached a deal to end that war in November 2024 but Israel had kept up near-daily strikes in what it says is an effort to prevent the Iran-backed militant group from regrouping.

That escalated into another invasion after Hezbollah again began firing missiles at Israel in response to its war on Iran.

In southern villages like Jibsheet, a trickle of residents returned to flattened apartment blocks and streets littered with chunks of concrete, twisted aluminium shutters and dangling electrical wires.

“I feel free being back,” said Zainab Fahas, 23. “But look they destroyed everything — the square, the houses, the shops, everything.”

Many did not believe that their ordeal was really over.

“Israel doesn’t want peace,” said Ali Wahdan, 27, a medic walking on crutches over the rubble of the emergency services’ headquarters in Jibsheet. He was badly wounded in an Israeli air strike that hit the building without warning during the first week of the war.

“I wish it were different,” he said. “But this war will continue.”

In the neighbourhood of Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburb, entire buildings had been reduced to rubble after weeks of intense Israeli strikes.

Ahmad Lahham, 48, waved the yellow Hezbollah flag standing on a mountain of rubble that used to be his apartment building, which had also housed a branch of Hezbollah’s financial arm, Al-Qard Al-Hassan.

“We are at the service of the fighters,” said Mr Lahham, pledging his loyalty to the group.

He praised Iran, saying Tehran’s pressure in its talks with the US led to the truce, and condemned Lebanon’s direct talks with Israel.

“Only the Iranians stood with us, no one else,” he said, calling Lebanon’s leaders “the leadership of shame.”

A local government official in Haret Hreik said Israel struck the neighbourhood 62 times over the last six weeks.

“We’ve been able to clear up the rubble of the partially damaged buildings, but for those destroyed, we will need special equipment,” Sadek Slim, the neighbourhood’s deputy mayor, told a press briefing.