The smell was overwhelming as men worked throughout the day, using shovels, diggers and plastic tarpaulins to exhume the bodies. Since mid-September, more than 180 people had been buried in temporary graves, in what used to be an empty stretch of land, locals said.
A few graves had photos or purple flowers laid over them, but others were unmarked, apart from a piece of cardboard tied to a stick by string. Names were scrawled in black marker; sometimes also dates of death. Some had numbers: 127; 160.
The area was central, beside a busy road in the ancient southern Lebanese city of Tyre. Only a week before, Tyre was a ghost town facing regular Israeli bombardment, but now traffic had resumed and the streets seemed lively.
After more than 13 months of fighting between Hizbullah and Israel, including an intense two-month Israeli aerial assault across much of Lebanon, a ceasefire came into force early on November 27th. Within the next two days, nearly 600,000 of the roughly 1.2 million displaced people in Lebanon were moving back towards their homes, according to UN data. While there were celebrations along the packed roads to Lebanon’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs, going home also meant facing up to how much had been damaged and what else had been lost.
Nearly 4,000 people were killed by Israeli attacks across Lebanon, the vast majority from September on, according to the country’s ministry of health.
The ceasefire is already under pressure. Many Lebanese refer to it as a “one-sided ceasefire”: in the days after it came into force, it was violated dozens of times by Israel, according to the Lebanese speaker of parliament Nabih Berri as well as a French tally reported by Israeli media (Israel claims it has been forcefully enforcing the ceasefire’s terms). On Monday, Hizbullah fired two projectiles towards a disputed Israeli-controlled area known as the Shebaa Farms, saying it was a “warning” due to repeated Israeli violations: in response, Israel launched more strikes, killing at least 10 people, according to Lebanese health ministry tolls.
[ Netanyahu says Hizbullah ‘violated’ ceasefire after Israel launches air strikesOpens in new window ]
Yet the situation this week remained safe enough in Tyre that, on Monday, previously displaced families came back to claim their dead. A woman in black wailed, clinging to two others. More people were quiet, praying or standing in contemplation over graves. Plywood coffins lay open after the bodies in them were taken out. Several men leaned over one grave, lifting a wrapped corpse on to plastic sheets.
Civil defence members on the scene said those buried there were civilians, though several had photos presented in a way that indicated they had fought for Hizbullah.
Hani Saaed (60) was walking from grave to grave, checking the names. “My relatives, we found one and we’re looking for another,” he explained. Others remain under the rubble in his home village of Yarin, he added.
“Even if we all die, we believe in the resistance, we believe in Hizbullah,” Saaed continued. Then his bloodshot eyes welled up with tears and he began to cry.
Two men were collecting their uncle’s body: they said he died in a hospital in Tyre. Even if he was not killed directly by Israeli actions, they argued that Israel’s assault on the country meant hospitals were not working as they should, so his life could not have been saved. “This is the new Middle East,” one said sarcastically, gesturing around him. He was referring to a quote by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who – prior to October 7th, 2023 – talked at the UN General Assembly about a “new Middle East”, at a time when some neighbouring Arab countries were normalising their relations with Israel.
“We are not relaxed about the ceasefire, we’re against that ceasefire. We want to continue the war against Israel because we will never trust them,” said a 65 year old, who introduced himself as Abu Shadi, or “father of Shadi”. His son, Shadi, was killed in the 2006 war with Israel, he explained. Israel is still preventing him from going home: A’ita al Shaab is one of dozens of towns and villages that the Israeli military have warned Lebanese citizens not to go back to, with reports suggesting they have fired at people who tried to approach some areas. Israeli ground forces have 60 days to withdraw completely from Lebanon. In the meantime, they have announced nightly curfews south of the Litani river, from 5pm until 7am, provoking anger from Lebanese citizens
[ What does the ceasefire between Israel and Hizbullah entail and will it succeed?Opens in new window ]
Despite massive destruction, Abu Shadi said, Lebanese rushed en masse back to their homes over the past week “but the north of Israel is empty. What is the conclusion? Israel, they are afraid of us. The land does not belong to them.” And “America supports them”, he noted. “Every country helping Israel is our enemy.”
He gestured at the graves around him. “We are proud of our martyrs, they are our treasure. You have to pay for freedom, for dignity… We are paying the price of this war with our blood, we have to continue,” he said.
“We don’t need a ceasefire, we want to fight. [Israel] thought when they killed [former Hizbullah leader] Hassan Nasrallah we were finished but no. They don’t know that every one of us is Hassan Nasrallah.”
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