As they gradually returned to their homes, Lebanese marched amid the rubble of the town of Dahiyeh in southern Beirut to celebrate the end of the fighting.
Sporadic gunshots were heard at a main traffic circle in the city, as drivers honked their horns and residents cheered.
Dahiyeh was one of the areas hardest hit by Israel.
“We don’t care about the rubble and the destruction. We lost our livelihoods, our possessions, but it doesn’t matter, everything will come back. Like in 2006, when everything was rebuilt – Dahiyeh, the south and the Bekaa. She will be even more beautiful. And I tell Netanyahu that you lost, lost and lost again, because we came back and the others (Israelis) did not come back. They always hide in shelters like rats. Look at us, Netanyahu.” said Fatima Mohammed Hanifa, displaced from the southern suburbs of Beirut.
The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah provides for an initial two-month cessation of fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops must return to their side of the border.
“God save the guys and in the end Israel didn’t accomplish much, they were defeated and retreated. They have not occupied an inch of our land in the south. “, explained Qamar Haider, displaced from the southern suburbs of Beirut.
If it holds, the ceasefire will put an end to nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which degenerated in mid-September into all-out war and threatens to drag in Iran, Hezbollah’s protector, and Israel in a wider conflagration.
The agreement does not address the issue of the war in Gaza.
The truce in Lebanon could provide some respite for the 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by the fighting and the tens of thousands of Israelis who have fled their homes along the border.
Israel has said it will attack if Hezbollah breaks the ceasefire agreement, which was announced on Tuesday.
