Alicia Husseini She is excited. He can’t hide it. He doesn’t even want to. “May peace be with you, thank God,” she says to anyone who passes her on the street. She holds the phone up high, while this Colombian-Lebanese mixes Arabic and Spanish on a video call with her sister Fátima, in Venezuela. “We are very happy,” he confesses to this newspaper, unable to avoid taking small jumps through the streets of a city that was at war. Alice doesn’t walk. Levitates. “Have that happiness that seems like we have revived”, he confesses in front of his clothing store. Unlike the vast majority of buildings on this great commercial avenue in the southern suburbs of Beirutits premises have been left intact. Bombs no longer fall on Dahiyeh. The heavens are silent. The drone of Israeli drones has disappeared. Now, with the declaration of cease-fire last morning, the population displaced during the last two months has returned to what remains of his homes with the aim of stay.
The joy that dominates the streets contrasts with the landscape. The destruction is present in every corner of Dahiyeh. It is suburb from the south of Beiruta densely populated area controlled by Hezbollahhas been subjected to a ferocious bombing campaign practically daily in recent 60 days. “We didn’t know where to go,” Alicia recalls, about a life adrift that ended – or was put on hold – just a few hours ago. “When you went to one side, [los israelíes] They bombed you and if you moved to another, they attacked there too; they didn’t care “Who were there: women, children, old people…”, he denounces. But this feeling has dissipated this Wednesday at four in the morningwith the entry into force of the truce between Hizbullah and Israel. Now, in Lebanon, a feeling of enthusiasm.
“All this time I was praying to God that my house and my store would not be bombed, but in reality, if they bombed it, everything can be built again because here in the Lebanon“We have that strength,” he defends, before praising and thanking the “boys of the Resistance,” as Hezbollah calls itself. Around them, dozens of people step on the remains of glass that hundreds of Israeli attacks they have left as a macabre souvenir on the land of Dahiyeh. Not even the fine rain that falls stops those who, moved by illusion, run to reunite with their streets, their places, their houses, their previous life. In their hands, they carry portraits of the leader of the militia-party, the deceased Hasan Nasrallahand wave yellow and green flags which read ‘party of God’, Hezbollah, in Arabic.
Celebratory shots
Looking at the sky, the Israeli warplanes have disappeared and the surveillance drones. In return, children and adults fire celebratory shots with their rifles and pistols. There is still smoking rubble as a result of the final fireworks launched by the Hebrew troops until the last minutes before the ceasefire. “The rain will put out the fire,” a resident of Dahiyeh tells this newspaper between laughs.
“We will return to make Dahiyeh better, because there are people who They gave the blood so that we can continue existing“, defends Inas al Kashat25, after photographing her friend smiling in front of some rubble. Since October 8, 2023, when cross-border clashes began between Hezbollah e Israelthe Ministry of Health has registered 3,823 fatalities y 15,859 injured. The Israeli military escalation has caused an unprecedented population displacement in Lebanon of 1.2 million people. Now, the roads are clogged with returns. An entire country returns home.
100,000 homes destroyed
But many of them will probably find nothing more than ruins. According to a report from World Bankat least 100,000 housing units have been destroyed by Israeli violence. The hardest hit areas have been southern Lebanon, with border villages completely eradicated, the Bekaa Valley to the east and the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. “No matter what happens, we will remain on this earth: this land is ours and we will not leave,” says Inas, a native of Dahiye, to this newspaper. “Despite being destroyed, it is still the most beautiful thing in the world,” he says. Roa Kassem, 21 years old, at the foot of his destroyed house and with a portrait of Nasrallah in his hand. “Of course we will return“, these three friends from the neighborhood agree.
The third is Asmaa Bzeih, 27 years old, who works as a journalist on the ‘Palestina Hoy’ channel. “I no longer have a house, There is nothing,” he confesses to EL PERIÓDICO, unable to avoid hiding his smile. Last night, hours before the ceasefire went into effect and when the bombs were still falling About Dahiyeh, she and her family could not stand the emotion and began to return to the home that is no longer there. “Here, in the place where all our memories are, everything is easy,” says the young woman. “Israel was not only committing mass genocide, it was also committing a genocide against memoryand they have not been able to defeat that,” she defends proudly.
“Joy and sadness”
“We are happy now, although it is a mix between joy and sadness”Asmaa acknowledges. “Mr. Hasán [Nasrala] He is not with us now, and it is very difficult for us not listen to his speech today for the victory, but we are also happy to have returned home fulfilling the promise of ours,” defends the young journalist. On top of the residential buildings, there are already many families cleaning the glass broken by the explosions and assessing the damage. Behind the masks that protect them from the toxins that the debris still emanates, they feel victorious. His boys have defeated the “Zionist enemy.”
They look out the windows when they hear a van passing by with loud music praising Nasrallah. She is followed by hundreds of boys on motorcycles, waving Hezbollah flags with a victorious air. “All this loss is going to come back to us,” Alicia defends with a smile that dominates her face. “Dahiyeh, the south, Becá, Lebanon are going to be something more beautiful and people will be stronger“, he concludes, in the midst of the deepest devastation.
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