Mariam Allawiya, 60, and Kafa Wehbe, 67, sit on a sunlit balcony in a vacant apartment building in central Beirut, smoking and talking about lives shaped by war. Both grew up amid olive groves in southern Lebanon; Allawiya’s son married Wehbe’s daughter. Now grandmothers, they are squatting with dozens of relatives after being displaced again by Israel’s latest campaign.
They are among more than one million people the Lebanese government says have been uprooted since the fighting escalated last month, after rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel. Hezbollah says it was retaliating for U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran and for continued strikes on Lebanon following a November 2024 ceasefire. A fresh, short-lived ceasefire has been announced, but both Israel and Hezbollah have warned displaced residents not to return south; Allawiya and Wehbe say they will stay away because it is still too dangerous.
Allawiya was born in Maroun al-Ras, near the Israeli border. Israeli forces invaded in 1982; their home was destroyed and Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 18 years. The family fled north to Beirut’s southern suburbs but returned each summer and rebuilt their house under occupation. “Our village, our land, our houses, our trees, our olives, our apples — our soil,” Allawiya says. Wehbe recalls the checkpoints and permits that limited movement, comparing the experience to life in the Palestinian territories. “That’s why we support the resistance,” she declares — referring to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah emerged during the 1982 invasion, framing itself as a defender against foreign occupation and winning local support by funding reconstruction with Iranian money and by celebrating Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. That victory was brief for families like the Allawiyas: Israeli operations returned in 2006 and again in 2024, each time destroying the family home. They rebuilt after 2006 but were displaced once more by last month’s offensive, forced from their Beirut apartment into the vacant building now sheltering them.
Not all Lebanese blame Israel alone. Some fault Hezbollah for drawing the country into repeated conflicts. Wehbe worries others might abandon the south under pressure for a ceasefire or because of the new Israeli proposals to hold territory north of the border: Israel says it may continue to occupy land south of the Litani River to create a buffer zone that would prevent Hezbollah from firing rockets. “How could the south not be part of Lebanon? It’s on our map!” she says. She believes Hezbollah is the best hope for forcing an Israeli withdrawal, since it did so in 2000.
Allawiya, Wehbe and 35 relatives are crowded into the donated apartment building, where families are sleeping in shared rooms and hanging baby clothes to dry on balconies. On April 7 they stayed up waiting for news of a mediated ceasefire between the United States and Iran; early reports suggested it might cover Lebanon, and they prepared to return home. Instead, on April 8 Israel carried out a barrage it described as strikes on Hezbollah targets — about 100 strikes in 10 minutes, according to Lebanese authorities, that killed more than 350 people and hit parts of central Beirut, shaking the building where the families were sheltering. The attack convinced them that temporary deals may not last. “To be honest, we don’t feel safe going back. The Israelis may break their promise,” Allawiya says.
They worry about neighbors left behind and try to learn whether homes in the southern suburbs and in their village still stand. For Allawiya, the dream is not the Beirut apartment but the ancestral house in Maroun al-Ras, now again under Israeli control as part of the proposed buffer. One of her children made a video of the old home with photos set to an Egyptian ballad called “Lebanon in the Heart.” She watches it repeatedly on her phone and hums along: “Wake up, oh South! The sun is setting,” and the refrain, “There is no one but us to protect our homeland.”
The war has interrupted daily life and care: Allawiya’s cancer treatment has been disrupted, one daughter-in-law is seven months pregnant, and grandchildren are out of school and restless. The families cannot stay in the borrowed apartment indefinitely, but with ceasefires precarious and parts of the south likely to remain under Israeli control for months, they do not know when — or if — they can safely return and rebuild again.