In Beirut Suburb, Streets Come Back to Life but the Future Is Uncertain

The Washington Post /Abbie Cheeseman

12:47 JST, November 28, 2024

DAHIYEH, Lebanon – It was a day of triumph for residents in Beirut’s southern suburbs, just hours after a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect. Bullets rained down from celebratory gunfire and the militant group’s bright yellow flags waved from the cars of people returning home.

This area near the capital, where Hezbollah holds sway, was battered by Israeli airstrikes as the conflict escalated over the past two months. It was where Israel killed the Shiite militant group’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, and where the military’s near-nightly evacuation orders forced residents to flee their homes in the dark.

And while the war may have cost Hezbollah its leaders, killed thousands of people and caused destruction across Lebanon, the prospect of an Israeli withdrawal under the terms of the U.S.-backed cease-fire agreement was seen here only as a win.

Abir Jaber, a mother of five, was giggling Wednesday as she settled back into her apartment in the Chiyah area of Dahiyeh. “Thank God, you’re alive!” she yelled out of her broken front door to each of the neighbors that trundled their belongings back into the building. “I feel like I am flying above the clouds, I am so happy to be home,” she said.

For much of the past two months, when a low-simmering conflict escalated into war, Jaber’s family had been living in a tent in one of Beirut’s parks. She said that Hezbollah, which is also a social and political movement, had not provided as much help as they had to others, including people staying in shelters.

But it did not shake her faith in the organization, which has fought several wars with Israel since its founding in 1982.

“We will always be with the resistance,” she said. “We would not be back in our homes, those tanks would not be leaving, if it wasn’t for Hezbollah,” her daughter, Zahra, 21, added.

Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, began trading cross-border fire more than a year ago, after the militant group stepped up attacks in solidarity with Hamas fighters in Gaza. For months, the two sides engaged in tit-for-tat strikes that were largely contained within several miles of each side of the border.

But in July, a rocket fired from Lebanon killed 12 children on a soccer pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, signaling the beginning of a violent escalation that is only now drawing to close.

Israel first unleashed a wave of attacks targeting Hezbollah communication devices, remotely detonating explosives in thousands of pagers and two-way radios. The operation was an opening salvo, after which Israel pummeled Lebanon with airstrikes, assassinated Hezbollah’s senior leadership and invaded the south.

Hezbollah also fired thousands of rockets, missiles and drones into Israeli territory. Now, the two foes have agreed to stop fighting, with Hezbollah pledging to move away from the border and Israel agreeing to a phased withdrawal over the next two months.

In Dahiyeh, some of Hezbollah’s most ardent supporters said the destruction caused by Israel’s bombardment reinforced the group’s image as a force of resistance, no matter who started the latest round.

Elsewhere, anger has long simmered among the wider Shia community over the fact that Hezbollah commanders targeted by Israel were hiding in densely populated areas.

Hezbollah members were out repairing roads on Wednesday, but it remained unclear how long such support would last, once the dust settles and people need to rebuild.

Despite the extensive damage in Dahiyeh, the area almost immediately sprang back to life. Restaurants reopened, clothes shop owners redressed mannequins in winter clothing and produce sellers emerged with carts of fresh vegetables on the rubble-lined streets.

As the day went on, and people began to settle back into their homes, supermarkets filled with people buying groceries for dinner.

In recent weeks, residents used gunfire to signal to others that Israel had posted a new evacuation order – mostly on X in the middle of the night. Now, as gunfire crackled through the air, the noise meant people were being welcomed home.

As celebration rang throughout Hezbollah-controlled areas, a sense of unease clouded the relief for much of the rest of the country, as attention turned to what might come next.

Jaber was elated to be home, but her husband, Hussein Sabaa Rekin, said the neighborhood generator was damaged in a strike. The family was relying on the few hours of electricity provided by the government each day.

Sitting in the dark, with no gas to cook and little money to buy food, all they could do was thank God that they still had a home and were safe.

Their youngest daughter Zeinab, 2, entertained herself for the evening playing with the bags of chips they had bought from the store to tide them over.

Across the street, an airstrike brought down a building just 12 hours before the start of the cease-fire. There, searching through the rubble, was a man who managed to pull an electric fan from the ruins of his home. Next door, a gaping hole scarred the side of another building.

Inside, Ali, who spoke on the condition he only be identified by his first name out of fear of reprisals, said his apartment was so badly damaged that they would have to tear the whole building down.

“Not because there is anything or anyone that is part of Hezbollah’s military here,” he said. “Because they made sure they hit every Shia neighborhood.”

Across Dahiyeh, entire streets have been destroyed and some of the buildings pancaked by airstrikes are still smoldering.

“We see what is happening in Gaza and we see the price that we have to pay. I don’t care about this,” Ghadir Hijazi, 35, who works in the radiology center of a nearby hospital said, gesturing around her damaged apartment in the middle of the Haret Hreik neighborhood.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. The conflict started after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people.

“At least we did something for all of the nations that betrayed Gaza,” Hijazi said.