Those who return to southern Lebanon find scenes of destruction

By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers
Aug. 15, 2006

BINT JBAIL, Lebanon - The winding roads of southern Lebanon led residents on a journey of discovery through scorched mountains and rubble as they returned to their devastated homes Monday after a month of warfare.

Many were eager with anticipation. Some voiced defiance of the Israelis. Many were disappointed at what they found. A few were thankful that comrades had survived the fighting.

At Kasmiyeh, vehicle after vehicle crossed the Litani River over a bridge made of dirt and wooden crates, cobbled together to replace the one that had fallen to Israeli airstrikes. To ease the loads, children jumped from flatbed trucks filled with fans, mattresses and plastic bags of food and personal effects as Hezbollah aid workers helped them across.

"We can't wait, not even one more minute," said Hussein Salman, who with his wife and three young children had taken shelter for 29 days in the port city of Sidon after fleeing their village of El-Qlaile.

Hezbollah militants did little to hide themselves, though by midday their weapons had been stashed. Riding on mopeds and talking on two-way radios, they zigzagged through the traffic, hailing and kissing one another. "Humdilla Assalamee," they often said. "Thank God for your safety."

Bassam Abu Saleh fetched his family members from the town of Sarafan, where they'd taken cover 13 days ago. As they approached their home in Kafra, they found the road blocked with rubble, the remains of the bakery, the olive-oil shop and someone's twisted bedposts.

Abu Saleh lifted his daughter, Dima, 5, so she wouldn't cut her feet. His other daughter, Nisrene, 7, climbed the steps to their house and sobbed uncontrollably.

Glass was everywhere. A hole gaped in the ceiling of the master bedroom, and parts of the wall and the roof were on the floor. A string of round paper yellow faces that Nisrene had made was missing one.

"Baba, this is our house. See this?" Abu Saleh said to her, pointing to fallen rafters, broken glass and debris. "We'll just pick it up and throw it out. Thank God we're OK."

No one returned to Bint Jbail, which had been the center of much of the fighting. Those who tried were stopped at the government hospital in Tebnine. There are Israeli soldiers in the road, they were told.

But Lebanese Red Cross workers went anyway, after days of paralysis and fear of airstrikes. In the ghost town they stepped carefully through the rubble and craters, afraid that unexploded bombs remained in the street. Charred photos were strewn throughout the rubble.

A wail echoed through the street. Ronald Makhlouf, a Red Cross volunteer, heard the cry. Behind an iron gate a woman well into her 80s was crying.

"I need my children," Sikney Atwee told Makhlouf. She'd lived through the bombardment alone for more than a month. To sustain herself she'd scavenged what food she could from the rubble of homes.

"Are the men that destroyed the homes gone?" she asked the aid workers, who held her up and walked her toward a stretcher. "I told them not to. I told them to fix them."

The woman's legs buckled.

"I can't make it," she said. When she sat down, she begged, "Don't leave me! Don't leave me here!" - afraid she'd be left behind again.

Nearby, the Shamee family hunkered down in a one-room home with a narrow kitchen and a tiny bathroom. Rocks were strewn in the back of the room, across from a hole in the front wall. Under the rocks were the bodies of two neighbors who'd been killed in an airstrike eight days before.

For seven days, the Shamees had lived with the dead. They'd tried to keep bugs from the body with insect spray. They'd tried to fend off the smell by piling more and more rubble on the bodies.

"Where could we go?" asked one of the women, Nimri Muslim Shamee, who told of sleeping in the tiny bathroom, afraid that another missile would strike the house.

"Is it over now?" she asked a visitor.

That question remained unanswered.

There were heavy gunfire and sporadic explosions in the distance. A Hezbollah guerrilla pointed toward a distant mountain.

"There are Israelis there," he said.

Fadel reports for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.