Displaced Lebanese residents returning home to scenes of destruction

An RT crew has traveled to southern Lebanon, days after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect.

The fragile truce commenced last week following 14 months of hostilities that has left more than 3,500 people dead and numerous settlements across the country damaged or destroyed.

Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months have leveled entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced by Israel’s invasion and bombing of the country, according to local authorities.

The towns of Qana, Maarakeh, Seddiqine, Kafra, and Mahrouna were all heavily bombarded during the latest Israeli attacks, which destroyed hospitals, churches and mosques.

Thousands of people have returned to their hometowns to check on their properties after the ceasefire, many not knowing whether their houses were still standing. RT’s Steve Sweeney, who was one of the first journalists to reach the area of southern Lebanon, spoke to local residents.

“Israel cannot destroy the resistance or the fighters so it resorts to attacking medical facilities. What has a hospital to do with what is happening? Is it a military target? The hospital is for the wounded and sick, not for anything else! The wounded are civilians who are injured. Military personnel do not usually go to the hospital,” a local man said.

Clean-up operations in the settlements have been underway since the armistice came into effect but, according to local citizens, dozens of bodies have yet to be recovered at the impact sites.

Some of the settlements, including the village of Maroun El Ras, remain occupied by Israeli forces and they are refusing locals to return home, even firing at them in breach of the agreed ceasefire.

In southern Lebanon, between 40,000 to 100,000 homes have reportedly been damaged or destroyed, with the cost of the destruction estimated at $13 billion.

The hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel escalated in October 2023 when the militant group began sporadically shelling Israeli territories, proclaiming solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, the IDF must withdraw from Lebanon within 60 days, ceding control of the occupied territory to the Lebanese Army.