"A moment of pride": Displaced Lebanese citizens start returning home
Displaced Lebanese citizens have begun returning to their homes in evacuated southern regions of the country following the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire which came into effect early Wednesday morning.
Many people will return to their villages to find them unrecognizable, damaged or destroyed by Israel’s bombardment, which included a year of cross-border strikes and months of full-scale war.
Hussein Sweidan, a man returning to the southern port city of Tyre, told the Associated Press (AP): “This is a moment of victory, pride and honor for us, the Shiite sect, and for all of Lebanon.”
Hussam Arrout, a father of four, said his family was still on edge while Israel was yet to withdraw completely from Lebanon.
“We decided to wait until the army announces that we can go in. Then we’ll turn the cars on immediately and go to the village,” Arrout told Reuters.
A girl displaced in the city of Sidon told Reuters she was reluctant to return to her home village of Adloun after making new friends. “I made friends here and now we have to be separated to go back to the south – I don’t want to leave them, we cried a lot. They are like sisters to me now, to be honest,” she said.
Remember: Israel issued evacuation orders for large swathes of southern Lebanon in recent months, displacing over a million people, as its conflict with Hezbollah escalated and the Israeli military launched a limited ground incursion into the country.
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