Fear, Loss, and Hope Amid Israel’s War on South Lebanon

In the early morning of March 24, Nadia Arnaout and her sister, Marvet, woke up to the sound of frantic banging on the door. Their neighbors were yelling for everyone in the building to get outside within 10 minutes. Israel, they said, had sent them a text message warning that it was going to bomb the building behind theirs in Tyre, a historic city in south Lebanon.

Nadia, 68, and Marvet, 62, grabbed their phones and saw the text for themselves. They had no time to pack their belongings, and Nadia’s prosthetic leg made it difficult to run down a flight of stairs. She had suffered a stroke decades ago that left her partially paralyzed, eventually leading to an amputation.

The two women still managed to get out in time. They waited in anguish by the harbor, next to the calm blue sea and under the cloudy sky. They waited for hours, fearing Israel would level their neighborhood and upend their community.

Israel finally struck at two o’clock that afternoon.

When Nadia and Marvet returned that afternoon, they found their balcony and parts of their kitchen reduced to rubble. The floors of their bedrooms and living room were littered with debris and shrapnel. Over the next three days, they cleaned enough of the wreckage and ashes to make the apartment habitable. Despite the ruins and crumbling walls, they were determined to live there for as long as possible. The apartment was their childhood home and evidence that they belonged to a city and community. 

“We still have neighbors who live above us and next to us,” Nadia told me during the height of the war. “If they were to leave then maybe we wouldn’t stay. Everybody here takes care of each other.” 

In south Lebanon, the notion of home is inseparable from the land and the communities it sustains. Years of Israeli aggression have forged a collective resolve among residents to remain rooted there. From nearly two decades of occupation (1982-2000) to the catastrophic 2006 war, generations have endured cycles of displacement, grief, and return that have deepened their attachment to home. 

The latest cycle began during the early onslaught of the US-Israeli war on Iran, when Israel escalated its war on south Lebanon on March 2, ostensibly to weaken the Shia militant group Hezbollah. It has since destroyed civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, solar panels, and water systems. It has also poisoned south Lebanon with white phosphorus, an incendiary substance that burns farmland and contaminates water and soil. All the while, Israel has consolidated its occupation over dozens of villages after razing them to the ground. 

Many in south Lebanon view Israel’s occupation and scorched-earth tactics as another attempt to sever their connection to their land. For Nadia, that prospect is unthinkable. “Tyre will always be my home and my city,” she says. 

The latest war uprooted some 1.2 million people from predominantly Shia Muslim communities, who form the majority of Hezbollah’s base. Some returned following the United States ceasefire with Iran on June 18. More returned after Lebanon signed the Trilateral Framework Agreement with Israel days later. Both ceasefires have failed to protect civilians in south Lebanon. 

Tens of thousands of people remain displaced from a nearly 20-kilometer wide (around 12.4 mile) strip of land, which amounts to about a fifth of Lebanon’s territory. Israeli forces have emptied this zone of its inhabitants, continuing to fire on or kill anyone attempting to return. They also continue to bomb civilian targets across south Lebanon, even as fighting has somewhat simmered down.

Meanwhile, the Framework deal has done little to inspire hope, as it ties a full Israeli withdrawal to the Lebanese government disarming Hezbollah — a task it is ill-equipped to carry out. During a visit to the occupied villages, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that Israel will not withdraw until the “threat [of Hezbollah] is removed.” Neither he nor Israeli military officials have defined what that means, raising fears of an indefinite occupation.

“Everybody here takes care of each other.” – Nadia Arnaout

That fear was already evident when I visited Tyre in April. Israeli troops were just 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the city, and Nadia and Marvet had little money to rent an apartment elsewhere.  Their siblings were squeezed for space from hosting displaced relatives while Lebanon’s 625 state-run school shelters were at full capacity. 

All the while, Nadia and Marvet increasingly felt like strangers in their land. War had turned the ancient Phoenician city into a ghost town: The once bustling fish markets and crowded beaches were empty while most shops and stores were shuttered. Nadia struggled to sleep due to overwhelming stress. She worried that she would miss an evacuation warning if she dozed off and trembled when warplanes and drones flew overhead. The thud of nearby artillery sometimes echoed through the house, frightening Nadia. Marvet tried to console her with hugs and a sense of humor, often making funny faces to lighten the mood.

“I’m not scared, but I’m scared for my sister,” Marvet told me when I visited them during the fighting. “This is why I’m always trying to make her laugh. I want to raise her morale and get her mind off the war.”

While Nadia and Marvet stayed at home during the first weeks of the war, others sought refuge further north. Taleen Yassine, 19, hastily escaped the southern city of Nabatieh with her younger brother, her parents and the family dog. Nabatieh was under daily Israeli bombardment, so they headed to the Christian-majority village of Fiaa al-Koura, the same place her parents had fled to during the 2006 war. At the time, Taleen was still in her mother’s womb. 

During the final hours of that 34-day war, Israel dropped between two to four million cluster munitions on southern Lebanon ahead of a ceasefire. The United Nations later dispatched a team to help the Lebanese army demine. Yet in the ensuing years, farmers, shepherds, and small children were killed or wounded by these munitions, which are prohibited under international law. Taleen was born into a world laced with explosives.

The latest war dragged on longer than the one in 2006. And while the people of Fiaa al-Koura welcomed Taleen and her family with open arms, they longed to return to Nabatieh. “We are very connected to our land. Maybe it’s because so many of us lived through wars against Israel while the rest of us grew up understanding that Israel always threatened to take our land,” Taleen told me when I visited her up north during the worst of the fighting.

Taleen described a tight-knit community in Nabatieh. Growing up, her front door was always open to neighbors and relatives who came over unannounced. In the evenings, she often met friends at a sushi cafe or at the historic downtown market. Israel bombed the market during a previous escalation against Hezbollah in 2024. 

While infrastructure can be rebuilt, lives can’t be replaced. On March 24, Israel killed two uniformed medics while they were riding a motorbike that was clearly marked as an ambulance. The victims were Taleen’s friends: Ali, 22, and Joud, who was just 16. They were among the more than 130 medics killed by Israel in the previous round of fighting, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. 

A week after the incident, Taleen drove down with my colleague and me to pay her respects. As we entered Nabatieh, we passed mounds of rubble in the deserted roads. The city was quiet, except for the intermittent noise of Israeli drones buzzing above. Nabatieh, which Taleen remembers as being vibrant and charming, was unrecognizable. War had turned it into a battlefield and killed her friends. Once we reached Joud’s grave, she knelt down and cried. 

“Home is never the same when a friend is killed,” she later told me, resigned. “All we are left with are memories of that person. But when we return to our land, we can’t make new memories with the ones that passed.”

Memories, of course, are not merely about loss and longing. They can also inspire hope and resolve. Taleen’s parents, Wassim and Tala, remember when Israeli forces withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000, after failing for years to crush an insurgency by Hezbollah. 

Israeli tanks, guns, and vehicles became artifacts of the occupation. Prisoners staggered out of dark detention centers and onto the warm soil of a familiar land. After enduring years of isolation and torture, they walked into the arms of their loved ones, regaining a semblance of intimacy and belonging. “After Israel left, I felt I just woke up from a nightmare,” Wassim told me, the nostalgia bringing a smile to his face. “It felt like we collectively regained our dignity and honor.” 

Nadia, too, remembers the joy when Israel withdrew. After years of displacement during the occupation, she returned to Tyre with her father, mother, and siblings. She recalls how people celebrated on the street and danced in the ruins of their homes. Despite the destruction, everyone was eager to rebuild. Weddings soon followed, a sign of new beginnings. 

Unlike 26 years ago, people returning today are not celebrating liberation: They are bracing for another cycle of escalation and displacement. Weeks after I visited Nadia in Tyre, the stress and fear finally pushed her to stay with her other sister further north.  Marvet stayed behind to continue dental treatment with her orthodontist. Like many people, Nadia returned to Tyre once the ceasefire was announced. Still, she worries the relative calm won’t last. “We are all afraid that the truce will collapse at any time.” 

Taleen also knows that war is not over and that she might have to flee again, as she’s done three times in the last two years. When Lebanon and Israel agreed to a previous 10-day ceasefire on April 17, she and her family eagerly returned to Nabatieh. By the time they arrived, Israel was already bombing the city. They have since fled and returned once more.  

Between the ruins of home and displacement, Taleen is trying to live a normal life. She’s enrolled to study journalism at university despite the ever-present threat of a renewed escalation, which could see Israel’s occupation stretch deeper into south Lebanon, perhaps engulfing her own city. Still, she holds fast to hope, reminding me that her parents experienced liberation once. 

Taleen believes that someday her generation will experience it, too.