Refugees Return to South Beirut - Mon 14th Aug - Photo Report

Hizbollah engineers have been moving heavy lifting equipment into the district since the ceasefire began and are already clearing paths through the rubble ready for repairs and rebuilding. Shopkeepers are clearing up their businesses and people are picking their way through the devastation to their homes. Everywhere the devastation is teaming with life as people from the neighbourhoods begin to organise. Some men near me are noting the damage on a clipboard as they move from street to street. ‘We have won’, a women tells me as she stands by the rubble of her apartment block. This is the attitude of everyone I meet. People have lost their loved ones and homes but they remain undefeated and they are deeply proud of the humiliating defeats suffered by Israel in the south.

For the first time, Hizbollah’s military wing are openly on the streets in the closest thing they have to a uniform; dark clothing, military webbing and AK47s. They are still operating cordons, keeping people and press away from areas where unexploded ordinance lies in the rubble. The gratitude and admiration the people feel for them is clear to see. They have remained here through the height of the bombing to protect homes and property. Everywhere I look, shop windows lie in the street but the stock and cash registers remain untouched. Dr Hussain Al Hajj Hassan (a Hizbollah politician) is mobbed by an adoring crowd of locals. He gives me the victory sign as I take his picture. The crowd responds with cheers.


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