The avenues of Dahieh resemble a scene straight out of an apocalyptic movie. The suburbs surrounding Beirut to the south of the Lebanese capital — Dahiye means suburb in Arabic — show such destruction after 46 days of the latest Israeli offensive that, in some areas, a return to civilian life seems impossible. Last Saturday, thousands of residents returned to the area to assess the damage, unsure whether the 10-day ceasefire announced by the United States on April 16 — which went into effect last Friday — will provide the necessary diplomatic leeway, as the Lebanese government hopes, to make the ceasefire permanent and prevent a resumption of war between Israel and the armed Islamist militia Hezbollah.
In Haret Hreik, Laylaki, Hadath, and the other municipalities that make up Dahieh, a 22-square-kilometer (8.5-square-mile) urban area where 700,000 people live, it’s difficult to find two consecutive streets without buildings destroyed or damaged by the shockwaves, which have ripped awnings and windows to shreds. A cloud of dust engulfs the area, amid machinery moving debris and residents sweeping their section of the street. Pedestrians keep their distance from the residential towers to avoid the potential collapse of buildings miraculously still standing, and the buckets of glass and concrete that residents throw down as they clean their apartments.
Most of those out and about in Dahieh on Saturday had returned from their forced displacement to check on their homes and businesses. Some chose to confirm their return and got to work. Others gathered a few belongings and left. Wael, 30, was among them. He explained that during the war, he would visit a friend who lived in a high-rise building in downtown Beirut. “From his house, you could see ours in Dahieh,” he said. “I could see if it was still there, even if a window was damaged.”
Far from the Israeli-occupied villages of southern Lebanon, Dahieh, where Hezbollah has a presence and supporters, is the area that has suffered the most destruction in Beirut. Since March 2, when the pro-Iranian movement fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, the Israeli offensive has destroyed more than 7,500 homes in the Beirut suburbs, according to research by a Lebanese public institute dated April 7. In five weeks, according to the same source, Israeli troops destroyed nearly 1,000 homes a day in Lebanon, almost all of them in areas where Hezbollah receives support.
Near St. Michael’s Church in the municipality of Chiyah, a suburb of Beirut, Hezbollah has set up an information point for journalists while restricting access to reporters to tours led by the Shia party-militia. A member of the organization points out to EL PAÍS the rubble of what was once a 20-story building housing a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hasan, the financial institution that Israel has bombed on several occasions due to its affiliation with Hezbollah’s social arm, claiming it strengthens its military wing. Next door, the man says, there used to be an Islamic school where now there is a pile of ruins.
Ziad, a 55-year-old taxi driver, is one of the few who remained in the area during the war, disobeying Israeli orders and the urgency created by the bombings. “I sleep however I can,” he says, laughing. He drives around Dahieh on a Vespa that seems too small for him as he surveys the scene: “I’ve done it every day: since I have nothing to do, when there’s a bombing, I go to watch.”
He was the only one who stayed in his building, and he helped a very elderly woman who remained alone in the building across the street, while continuing to go to his usual café, where he spent his evenings smoking hookah and debating with a few other acquaintances. During one of these conversations, a man with several properties who fears losing them, and who is “secular” — Ziad, a Shia and staunch supporter of Hezbollah, clarifies — even joked that when the war is over, he’ll “go dancing in Tel Aviv,” tired of living in so much fear.
But not all Shias support the war. Through the cloud of dust appears Mona, a pseudonym for a young Lebanese woman. Made up, with her hair loose and wearing a leather jacket, she fears that Israel will resume its offensive in a few days “to finish the job they started” if negotiations fail. She says she has started learning Hebrew “to understand the enemy,” but distances herself from the general sentiment of those around her. “They are my people,” she says, referring to Hezbollah, “but I advocate for some kind of diplomatic understanding that will bring peace, something that seems controversial these days.”
Consolidating the ceasefire
Just a short distance away, on the other side of the perimeter established by the Israeli army to evacuate Dahieh as part of its war against Hezbollah, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam were working from the Presidential Palace last Saturday to prevent a return to war. They are seeking to consolidate a temporary ceasefire, which expires next Sunday, April 26, in imminent negotiations in which Israel is participating — though the presidential statement avoids mentioning it — and in which Beirut is also demanding a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army, the release of dozens of Lebanese held incommunicado in Israeli prisons, and the demarcation of a definitive border between the two countries.
“We are confident that we will save Lebanon,” Aoun proclaimed on Friday during a televised address to the nation. Faced with criticism from Hezbollah and its allies, who accuse the authorities of leading the country into submission by engaging in dialogue with Israel, the president defended his refusal to condemn Lebanon to “suicide,” a clear reference to the endless cycle of violence against an overwhelmingly powerful army, and to “die for no one but Lebanon.” “Today, we are no longer anyone’s pawns or battleground,” he warned, in a clear allusion to the influence of Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer, in the country.
Although these words may be pleasing to Israeli ears, it seems unlikely that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — which refused to talk to Beirut and accept a truce until Trump imposed one — will achieve its goals in just a few days of negotiations with Lebanon. Israel has expressed its distrust of the Lebanese leadership regarding the disarmament of Hezbollah, Israel’s primary security concern on its northern border. This makes U.S. pressure for a potential transition to a permanent truce seem essential, while the Israeli army moves in the opposite direction and consolidates its occupation of southern Lebanon.
Last Saturday, an Israeli military statement justified attacks in the southern part of the country, claiming that they were acting within the Yellow Line, a demarcation within Lebanon not established by the truce, which Israel had neither previously presented nor detailed what area it covers, and which mirrors the ceasefire scheme in Gaza. The U.S.-brokered cessation of the Israeli offensive in the Palestinian Strip last October splits the territory in two. One half is inhabited and controlled by Hamas; the other, now a ghost territory serving as a buffer zone, is dominated by the Israeli army and is also demarcated by a so-called Yellow Line.
In that border region, the truce has not silenced the gunfire. The United Nations peacekeeping mission reported the death of a French peacekeeper in Ghanduriya last Saturday, killed by non-state actors, in an apparent reference to Hezbollah, although the militia has denied any involvement in the attack. Some residents of southern Lebanon have reported to the press explosions coming from occupied and often devastated towns, such as Taybeh, Qantara, and Khiam. Izzat Hammoud, mayor of the border town of Beit Lif, has called on the Beirut government to take action “to stop the demolition of homes and the destruction of land by the Israeli army.”
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