Lebanese citizens return to their homes heavily damaged by Israeli attacks, after Israeli forces withdraw from the area in An-Naqoura, Lebanon, on Thursday.
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TYRE, Lebanon — There are just a couple of days remaining before a ceasefire deadline between Israel and the Lebanon-based fighting group Hezbollah.
As part of the deal, the Israeli military is slowly withdrawing its troops from Lebanese villages on the border, which it occupied toward the end of a nearly 14-month conflict with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group based in Lebanon.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, signed late last November, Israel has had 60 days to withdraw from an area in Lebanon south of the Litani River and for the Lebanese military to reassert control over the same areas.
Israel’s withdrawal would allow tens of thousands of Lebanese residents to return home to villages near the border with Israel. They are the final groups expected to go back to their villages after the war sent 900,000 people fleeing to other parts of Lebanon, and hundreds of thousands of others into neighboring Syria, according to United Nations figures.
But many Lebanese residents say they fear there is nothing left to go back to.
“Our village is completely destroyed. There is not a single house standing. The Israelis destroyed it all,” Jaafar Issa, a resident of southern Lebanon, says, showing NPR videos of his village posted on social media by the Israeli military.
Scattered photographs and other items are seen on the floor of a home that was damaged during Israel’s war with Hezbollah, in An-Naqoura, Lebanon.
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In another life, Issa grew tobacco and tomatoes in Ramya, his village in southern Lebanon. Today, Israeli forces still surround it, and his croplands are destroyed.
He is now living in a whitewashed school-turned-shelter in the historical Lebanese port city of Tyre. Nearly all of the residents at the shelter, like Issa, arrived in October 2023, thinking they would stay just a few weeks. Nearly a year and a half later, they are still stuck there.
Outside the shelter, volunteers are unloading truck after truck of supplies provided by international aid groups — stacks of food ration boxes, mattresses and blankets.
Bilal Kachmar, who works with the state-run disaster response unit in Tyre and helps run the shelter, says he recently visited a cluster of four villages in southern Lebanon Israeli troops had just withdrawn from.
Kachmar showed NPR pictures of what remains of the villages. There is no functioning water or electricity infrastructure left. He estimates 98% of buildings were destroyed in one village, called Tayr Harfa. The most intact village he saw only had 50% of its houses left standing.
Lebanon now faces the immense task of rebuilding and rehousing displaced residents. The World Bank estimates the economic losses and costs of rebuilding war-damaged parts of Lebanon at around $8.5 billion.
The burden is especially heavy for the people who were the first to flee their homes from border villages when the fighting began in October 2023.
They are the last to go back, and they fear their villages are now uninhabitable. Their communities close to the Israeli border were among the hardest hit by the fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, and for the longest period of time.
They also may have to deal with the toxic aftereffects of war. Human rights groups have documented Israel’s use of white phosphorous munitions across southern Lebanon. The munitions create a blinding smoke that can lead to severe long-term burns and respiratory issues.
White phosphorous munitions explode differently than other artillery, Nader Abu Sarie, a displaced Lebanese resident living in the Tyre shelter, explains.
“They exploded softly, like an upside-down vase of flowers,” in the sky above his village near the town of Dhayra, Lebanon, in October 2023, Abu Sarie says. It created a thick smoke that hung in the air for nearly six hours, he says, sending his neighbors to the hospital with breathing problems.
“When dawn broke, the whole world was white. I could not see my own hands in front of me,” says Abu Sarie. Small phosphorous fragments embedded in the soil where he once grew food, and when he nudged the fragments with his foot, two months after the munitions were first dropped, they ignited, sending smoke into the earth, the air, and into his lungs, he says.
Israel’s military said in response to NPR’s reporting that it uses smoke shells that contain white phosphorous to create defensive smokescreens, though “such shells are not used for targeting or causing fire.” It also said that its procedures “require that such shells are not used in densely populated areas, with certain exceptions.”
The Lebanese army said Abu Sarie would be able to return home in mid-December 2024, but that date has come and gone.
A man carries the Hezbollah flag and drives a car with a photo of the militant group’s former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on the windshield, as Lebanese citizens return to their homes after Israeli forces withdraw from the area in An-Naqoura, Lebanon, on Thursday.
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As part of the ceasefire terms, Hezbollah must withdraw from all areas of Lebanon south of the Litani River. Lebanon’s armed forces have to clear out Hezbollah’s weapons installations there. A senior member of the ceasefire implementation committee, who was not authorized to comment publicly, told NPR the Lebanese armed forces have been racing to reestablish control of parts of southern Lebanon, but the challenge has been compounded by difficult terrain and coordination between different armies.
“I would live in a tent if that meant I could go back to my land,” says Abu Sarie.
He is not the only one pining to go back home.
Another displaced Lebanese person at the shelter, Lina Mustafa, says her home village is still occupied by the Israeli army. When it’s time for her to go back, she says, she thinks she’ll be returning to mostly rubble.
“My father once told me that your land is your dignity,” she says while chopping parsley in the shelter kitchen and helping prepare a meal for residents. She says, it was only after this war, and more than a year of being displaced, that she finally understood what he meant.
