The cars began lining up at daybreak, snaking their way slowly through narrow lanes lined with collapsed buildings. A truce had finally ended hostilities between Israel and Hizbollah, and residents of Beirut’s suburbs were itching to go home.
With mattresses stacked atop their cars and yellow Hizbollah flags fluttering out of some of their windows, thousands of people displaced by months of fierce bombardment on the capital’s southern suburbs dashed back to their homes in the first hours after a ceasefire came into force.
The residential and commercial neighbourhoods had been upended by Israeli strikes, including in the final hours before the halt to hostilities began.
Entire buildings had been toppled, their roofs now slanting to the floor with thick concrete slabs, wires and broken household items littering the floor.
A man could be seen carrying a toddler on the sloping roof of a building, stepping around roof shingles, satellite dishes and crushed water tanks rolling towards the ground.
Relief was palpable – one woman was clapping as she drove into the neighbourhood and a young man could be seen on the upper floor of a building, sticking out two thumbs-up from a massive hole left by bombardment.
But many said their homes would be unliveable for the near future because Israeli strikes had damaged the neighbourhoods’ water and electricity networks, and that they did not know what could unfold after the 60-day ceasefire comes to a close.
“In the end, what is gone is gone,” said Ramez Boustany, a 62-year-old technician assessing the damage in his apartment.
“We don’t know what will happen in the future – whether there will be war again, or there will be a third world war, or things will end here and they will have an agreement. We really don’t know.”
The World Bank has said at least 100,000 housing units across Lebanon have been damaged or destroyed by the hostilities.
Thousands more headed to their villages in southern Lebanon, their cars adorned with Lebanese flags and posters of slain Hizbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli air attack on Beirut’s suburbs on September 27.
Some were held off from reaching their villages by the Lebanese army, which had urged residents not to venture into areas where Israeli troops were still deployed.
“There’s nothing like the soil of the south and the scent of the south,” said Khedr, a Lebanese man heading south with his family via Tyre, a coastal city also hit hard by Israeli strikes.
But the widespread joy was tempered hours later, when Israel’s military spokesman said troops would enforce a curfew barring anyone from entering most of southern Lebanon after 5pm local time until 7am.
“We will inform you when it is safe to return home,” the statement said.
Announcing the ceasefire, Biden spoke at the White House on Tuesday shortly after Israel’s security cabinet approved the agreement in a 10-1 vote.
Israel will gradually withdraw its forces as Lebanon’s army takes control of territory near its border with Israel to ensure that Hizbollah does not rebuild its infrastructure there after a costly war, Biden said.
He said his administration was also pushing for an elusive ceasefire in Gaza.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the group “appreciates” Lebanon’s right to reach an agreement which protects its people, and hopes for a deal to end the Gaza war.
But many Gaza residents said they felt abandoned.
“We hope that all Arab and Western countries, and all people with merciful hearts and consciences...implement a truce here because we are tired,” said displaced Gazan Malak Abu Laila.
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