Lebanon ceasefire lifts veil on scale of destruction and trauma

• In the dimly lit hospital room where he has lived for months, Youssef Fares broke down in tears as he spoke of his home in the historic southern Lebanese city of Tyre – now a pile of rubble and rebar after Israeli strikes during a three-month war.

An interim agreement between Iran and the United States has brought relative calm to Lebanon – but it has also revealed the full scale of destruction wreaked by Israel’s air campaign, which it said was aimed at armed group Hezbollah.

Fighting erupted on March 2, when Hezbollah fired at Israel in support of Iran, drawing Lebanon into the regional war. Israel responded with air strikes, and a ground invasion occupied parts of south Lebanon.

Fares fled to the Jabal Amel University Hospital in Tyre after his home was destroyed by Israeli strikes. When he returned to see the remains after the latest ceasefire agreement, the sight overwhelmed him.

“You couldn’t even look at a single room. It was dark from the soot,” he said. “It was a beautiful house. Honestly, the most beautiful house was my house in Tyre.”

The war has displaced 1.2 million people across Lebanon, and many – including Fares – are unable to return home, either because their villages lie in ruins or remain under Israeli control.

Fares is among at least 350 people still living at the Jabal Amel University Hospital, alongside staff and their families, according to its director, Wael Mroueh.

Even the hospital has not been spared. Despite its protected status as a medical facility, it bears the marks of the violence that has scarred southern Lebanon. Earlier in June, an air strike hit a nearby building, blasting a hole into one of the hospital’s walls.

Other healthcare facilities have suffered repeated damage. The nearby Hiram Hospital has been hit at least five times since March 2, according to a United Nations report.

More broadly, the World Health Organization has recorded 203 attacks on healthcare sites across Lebanon, killing more than 130 healthcare workers on duty and forcing the closure of 44 primary healthcare facilities and three hospitals.

From March 2 until June 14 – the night the US-Iran deal was announced – more than 3,700 people were killed and over 11,000 wounded.

Lebanon has yet to build a full picture of the destruction, but the latest figures from Lebanon's National Council for Scientific Research show that more than 68,000 housing units across the country were damaged or destroyed between March 2 and May 17.

Buildings damaged in the south within the first month of the war included hospitals, power stations and water pumping stations.

The authorities are now exploring long-term housing options for people whose homes have been destroyed or whose villages remain occupied.

For Ahmad, Fares’s son, this week’s ceasefire has brought a fragile sense of safety, but not complete relief.

“Before, we were afraid of dying, afraid of losing someone. Now, no, you feel there is a bit of safety... It is safer than the days when there was shelling, bombardment, air strikes and everything,” he said.

Still, the cycles of violence and displacement that have defined his adult life have worn him down, he said.

“Since I was born, it has been like this. We flee and we return, we return and we flee. We’ve spent our whole lives like this,” Ahmad said. “We just get no rest, we get no rest.” REUTERS