Residents of Beirut Suburb Return Triumphant, Despite Devastation
Following the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, the 1.2 million displaced Lebanese have begun returning to their homes
Maria is excited. She cannot hide it, nor does she want to. “May peace be with you, thank God,” she says to anyone who crosses her on the street in Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut. She holds her phone up high while video calling with her sister Gabriela in Guatemala in a mix of Arabic and Spanish. “We are very happy,” Maria, a Venezuelan Lebanese, tells the Media Line, jumping around the streets of a city that was at war just hours ago. With last night’s declaration of a cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel, Maria and her fellow Lebanese civilians are overjoyed to return to some semblance of normalcy.
Bombs are no longer falling on Dahieh. The skies are silent. The whirling of Israeli drones has disappeared. Miraculously, Maria’s clothing shop has remained intact—unlike most buildings on the large commercial avenue in Dahieh.
The joy that dominates the streets is at odds with the landscape. Destruction is present in every corner of the suburb. The densely populated area, which Hezbollah controls, faced a ferocious bombing campaign almost daily for the last 60 days.
“We didn’t know where to go,” Maria said. “Wherever you went one way, [the Israelis] bombed you, and if you moved another, they attacked there too. They didn’t care who was there: women, children, old people.” But that reality is now in the past. The displaced population has returned to what remains of their homes with the intention of staying, and there is room for enthusiasm alone.
“During all this time, I prayed to God that they wouldn’t bomb my house or my shop, but in reality, if they bomb it, everything can be built again because here in Lebanon, we have that strength,” Maria said. She expressed praise and gratitude for Hezbollah fighters—or, as she calls them, the “boys of the resistance.”
Around Maria, dozens of people step on the glass shards that the hundreds of Israeli attacks have left as a macabre souvenir. Neither the glass nor the thin stream of rain stops those who moved by the excitement, run to reunite with their streets, homes, and former lives. In their hands, they carry portraits of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel in September, and wave yellow and green Hezbollah flags.
The Israeli warplanes and surveillance drones have disappeared from the skies, and Dahieh residents, both children and adults, decide to fill them with celebratory gunfire from rifles and pistols instead. Until a few hours ago, these same weapons had been used to fire warning shots, asking the population to leave the area, which was under an Israeli evacuation order.
Some smoking debris remains as a result of the final fireworks launched by Israeli troops in the last minutes before the cease-fire. “The rain will put out the fire,” a resident of Dahieh told The Media Line, laughing.
Mariam al Hussein, 25, photographed a friend smiling in front of some rubble. “We will return to make Dahieh better because there are people who gave their blood so that we can continue to exist,” she told The Media Line.
In the past two months of fierce bombardment, more than 3,000 people were killed, and thousands more were injured. Since October 8, 2023, when cross-border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel began, the Lebanese Ministry of Health has recorded 3,823 deaths and 15,859 injuries.
The Israeli military escalation caused an unprecedented population displacement in Lebanon, with 1.2 million people forced to leave their homes. Most displaced people are now returning to their villages in southern and eastern Lebanon.
An entire country is returning home. But many of the returning residents will probably find nothing but ruins. According to a World Bank report, at least 100,000 housing units have been destroyed by Israeli violence. Southern Lebanon was the worst hit, with some border villages eradicated, along with the Beqaa Valley in the east and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
“No matter what happens, we will remain on this land. This land is ours, and we will not leave,” al Hussein, a native of Dahieh, said. Her friend Rula Mukdad celebrated alongside her at the site of her destroyed home, holding a picture of Nasrallah. “Despite being destroyed, it is still the most beautiful thing in the world,” Mukdad said.
Their third friend, Warda Mehdi, couldn’t help but smile even as she told The Media Line that her house was destroyed. “There is nothing,” she said. Last night, hours before the cease-fire came into effect and as bombs were still falling on Dahieh, she and her family set out for the home that is no longer.
“Here, in the place where all our memories are, everything is easy,” Mehdi said. “Israel was not only committing a mass genocide, but it was also committing a genocide against memory, and they have not been able to defeat that.”
She described her emotions as “a mixture of joy and sadness.” She said it was difficult for her that Nasrallah would not be giving a victory speech. “But we are also happy to have returned home, fulfilling the promise made to our people,” she said.
At the top of the residential buildings, many families are already assessing the damage and cleaning up windowpanes destroyed by the explosions. Behind the masks protecting them from the toxic fumes still emanating from the rubble, there is not a hint of sadness. They feel victorious. Their boys have defeated what they call the “Zionist enemy.”
They look out the windows when they hear a van passing, blasting loud music and praising Nasrallah. Hundreds of boys on motorcycles follow, triumphantly waving Hezbollah flags.
“All this loss will come back to us,” Maria said, smiling amid the devastation. “Dahieh, the south, Beqaa, Lebanon are going to be more beautiful, and the people are going to be stronger.”