‘I Just Want to Be Back’: Thousands Rush South in Lebanon Under Ceasefire

QASMIYEH, Lebanon — Thousands of displaced people crammed roads in Lebanon on Friday as they tried to return to the country’s devastated south, hours after a ceasefire paused fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Many rushed onto the main highway to southern Lebanon the moment the truce went into effect at midnight, desperate to get back to their villages — and to see if their houses had survived an intense campaign of Israeli airstrikes.

“Even if my home is destroyed, I will stay on the land — I just want to be back,” said Abbas Shami, 40, as his car sat motionless in traffic on the coastal highway.

As he waited to inch forward, Shami hopped out of the driver’s seat and tightened yellow string holding down three mattresses that he had stacked on his car’s roof. They were for sleeping outside, he said, if he returned to his village, in Ghandouriyeh, and found his home destroyed.

Shouting from a nearby car, Nadi Nouriddine, 43, offered some stronger rope. Neighbors who remained in her village, Froun, had already told Nouriddine that her home was gone.

“At least I’m prepared to see that,” she said. “I just want to be back to my land.”

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia, has killed more than 2,100 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million, mostly from the south of the country, according to the Lebanese authorities.

Even before displaced families reached the south, the war’s devastation was in plain view. Israel has bombed all of the main bridges linking northern and southern Lebanon across the Litani River, forcing cars to snake one by one along a makeshift dirt crossing. The bottleneck created a four-lane traffic jam stretching miles.

“Even if we have to walk, we will go home today,” said Ali Roumieh, 41. Around him, women and children squeezed between the cars after leaving their vehicles to travel by foot.

Still, excitement about returning was tempered by uneasiness about the days to come. Unlike a previous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024, which was indefinite, this one was announced as only for 10 days.

Abdullah Raouf Hamzieh, 54, recalled feeling ecstatic when the 2024 ceasefire was announced, and said it had felt like a win for Hezbollah. But he said his enthusiasm had faded as Israel continued to strike Lebanon in the year since.

“It actually wasn’t a victory — it was a disaster what happened,” Hamzieh said.

In a car nearby, Israa Jaber, 54, was waiting in traffic with her 9-year-old daughter, Lamis, who said she missed her teddy bears and her makeup. They were left at the family’s home in Srifa, a town in southern Lebanon, as the family rushed to flee Israeli airstrikes last month. Now they were headed back.

“I can’t express the joy I’m feeling. We didn’t sleep. But for this joy to be complete they have to extend this temporary truce,” Jaber said.

“If we have to leave again, I can’t describe how disappointing it would be,” she added. “It would be devastating.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Christina Goldbaum and Hwaida Saad/David Guttenfelder
c. 2026 The New York Times Company

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