[News] Lebanese see hope and beauty ahead in fragile ceasefire

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Lebanese see hope and beauty ahead in fragile ceasefire
[image: Ivana Skakye, 2, a Lebanese child who is suffering from
third-degree burns over 40 percent of her body following an Israeli
airstrike last September near their home in Deir Qanoun al Nahr,]
Ivana Skakye, a two-year-old with third-degree burns over 40 percent of her
body, receives treatment on October 29, 2024, at Beirut's Geitaoui Hospital
after an Israeli air strike hit near her home in southern Lebanon [Hussein
Malla/AP Photo]
By Justin Salhani
<https://www.aljazeera.com/author/justin_salhani_150211052541586>
Published On 28 Nov 2024 -
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/28/lebanese-see-hope-and-beauty-ahead-in-fragile-ceasefire
<https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2F92zkvw>
<https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Lebanese%20see%20hope%20and%20beauty%20ahead%20in%20fragile%20ceasefire&source=sharethiscom&related=sharethis&via=AJEnglish&url=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2F92zkvw>
<https://aje.io/92zkvw>

*Beirut, Lebanon* – For the past two months, St Francis Church in Hamra has
taken in displaced families from southern Lebanon and Dahiyeh, a
constellation of Beirut suburbs.

It’s been a difficult time for many of the families who fled Israeli
bombing and a ground offensive in the south, but since early Wednesday when
a ceasefire came into effect, there has been a different energy in the air.

Standing by the door to the church’s car park, where the displaced have
pitched tents, Ibrahim Termos, 25, radiated joy when asked about the
ceasefire on Wednesday.

Around him, people were packing up their tents and belongings as they
prepared for the journey back home.

“It’s not about just a ceasefire but that we won a ceasefire,” Termos said,
smiling. He lost his home in this war, but the fact the nightmare of the
past two months is over has him focusing on the positive.

“Our apartment was destroyed, but the building is still standing,” Termos
said.
Video Duration 2 minutes 24 seconds 2:24

   - Now Playing


   - Video Duration 06 minutes 03 seconds 06:03
   [image: Devastation in Gaza: Airstrikes and Humanitarian Crisis
   Intensify]
   Devastation in Gaza: Airstrikes and Humanitarian Crisis Intensify

A celebratory mood

After nearly 14 months of fighting, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and
Israel agreed to a ceasefire.

It stipulates that Israel must withdraw from Lebanon, and Hezbollah is to
retreat north of the Litani River. The Lebanese military is to deploy to
fill that space along the border with Israel within 60 days.

While some people were sceptical that Israel would commit fully to the
ceasefire – doubts that resurfaced on Thursday as Israel fired on a number
of locations in Lebanon – the general mood was euphoric.

A quarter of Lebanon’s population has been displaced in the war, and videos
and photos of packed roads circulated on social media as people headed home
before the day even broke on Wednesday.

Beirut was in a celebratory mood that morning as cars piled high with
mattresses and other belongings departed from hotels and shelters.

Posters of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah adorned many cars,
and some waved Hezbollah flags from their windows.

Some images also featured the late Hachem Safieddine, who was thought to be
Nasrallah’s likely successor before his assassination a few days after
Nasrallah’s.
[image: FILE PHOTO: Israel, Hezbollah agree to ceasefire brokered by U.S.
and France]Women wave Hezbollah flags as they drive past a damaged building
at the entrance of Dahiyeh [Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

In Zkak el-Blat, a convoy of motorcycles waving the red and green flags of
Harakat Amal, the party of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who negotiated
the ceasefire on behalf of Hezbollah, sped down a street, honking in
celebration.
‘I hope …’

At St Francis Church, many of the displaced who had homes to return to left
early in the morning.

Some whose houses are in the deep south in places like Khiam where the
devastation was brutal and Israeli soldiers may still be present said they
would stay another day.

The people in the shelter have lived through some hard moments, but many
are optimistic that this fragile peace will hold and the country will
prosper once more.

“I hope we have a beautiful future with no violence,” Mohsen Sleiman, 48,
said. “And that in our kids’ futures, they don’t see war and destruction.”

Despite losing his home in Dahiyeh and his home in his village of
al-Bayyaada in southern Lebanon, Sleiman is defiant, stressing that the
most important thing is his family’s safety.

“We’re used to this,” he said. “It’s a victory for all of Lebanon, not just
a single sect.”
Video Duration 2 minutes 45 seconds 2:45

Hussein Ismail, 38, was standing nearby, watching his young son bounce a
football in his hands.

Born during the Lebanese Civil War, he has been through the 2006 war
between Hezbollah and Israel as well.

Throwing his hands up, he exclaimed: “We’ve lived in this kind of
environment since our childhood.

“Now, we want to live independently.”

“I’ll go home, God willing,” he said. “I don’t know if my home in Choueifat
[a neighbourhood in Dahiyeh] is still standing, but everything will be OK.”
‘There’s beauty in what’s ahead’

Father Abdallah, wearing a brown robe and glasses, is speaking with
displaced people who are packing up and preparing to go home.

“I’m happy people get to go home,” he said.

“There’s joy and feelings of victory. They’re all happy. They see that
there’s beauty in what’s ahead.”

His Roman Catholic church, Abdallah said, opened its doors to everyone in
need, regardless of sect or religion.
Video Duration 2 minutes 34 seconds 2:34

“We welcomed them. In the end, the important thing is the dignity of life.
Dignity is a minimum.”

Many in Lebanon doubted a ceasefire would ever work, but once it took
effect, the outpouring of joy was ubiquitous.

For his part, Abdallah spoke with cautious optimism.

“Personally, I say, God willing, it holds,” he said. “It depends, but the
hope is it holds 100 percent.”
A fragile peace but likely to persist

As the day wore on, reports came in of Israeli violence as its soldiers
wounded two journalists in Khiam and fired at cars. But the ceasefire
nonetheless appeared to hold.

For now, breaking the ceasefire would be highly unfavourable for either
side as the political and military consequences would outweigh any
potential gains.

At a bookshop in Hamra, grey-haired intellectuals sat among piles of books,
discussing the latest developments.
[image: Sleiman Bakhti read the ceasefire's conditions closely.]Sleiman
Bakhti read the ceasefire’s conditions closely [Raghed Waked/Al Jazeera]

“The whole issue was never about Lebanon,” said Sleiman Bakhti, the shop’s
owner. “The negotiations [with Israel] should have been directly with
[Hezbollah’s main backers] Iran.”

Bakhti believes a new chapter is emerging for Lebanon, one that is less
defined by Iran and more by Israel and its allies – and the ceasefire may
be the first paragraph in that new chapter.

Also sitting in the bookshop is longtime radio correspondent Bassem
Elmoualem, an expert on the United States and Central America.

While many were looking at the short-term implications of the ceasefire,
Elmoualem’s decades as a political observer have taught him to look at the
bigger picture.

Israel’s actions, he said, led to the collapse of its global image.

“October 7 [2003] was the beginning of the end,” he said. “[Prime Minister
Benjamin] Netanyahu is dead.”
[image: Cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut's southern
suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah
took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after U.S. President Joe Biden said
both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France,
in Lebanon, November 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir]Cars drive past the
rubble of damaged buildings in Dahiyeh [Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]
-
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20241128/4a27b3f3/attachment.htm>