Displaced Lebanese return to scenes of destruction

Relief at a ceasefire beginning in Lebanon on Friday was tempered by the destruction that many encountered upon returning to their homes.

In the southern village of Jibsheet, a trickle of residents returned to flattened apartment blocks and streets littered with chunks of concrete, twisted aluminum shutters and dangling electrical wires.

“I feel free being back,” 23-year-old Zainab Fahas said. “But look they destroyed everything: the square, the houses, the shops, everything.”

In the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik, Ahmad Lahham, 48, waved the yellow Hezbollah flag. He stood on a mountain of rubble that was his apartment building and also housed a branch of Hezbollah’s financial arm, Al-Qard Al-Hassan.

Iran’s pressure in its talks with the U.S. brought the truce, condemning Lebanon’s direct talks with Israel, he said.

“Only the Iranians stood with us, no one else,” he said, calling Lebanon’s leaders “the leadership of shame.”