Mariam Allawiya, 60, and Kafa Wehbe, 67, sit on a sunny balcony in a vacant apartment building in central Beirut, smoking and talking about lives repeatedly torn apart by war. Both women were raised among olive groves in southern Lebanon; Allawiya’s son married Wehbe’s daughter. Now, as grandmothers, they are squatting with dozens of relatives after being displaced again by Israel’s latest campaign.
The two are among more than one million people the Lebanese government says have been uprooted since fighting flared last month after rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel. Hezbollah says its attacks were retaliation for U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and for continued operations in Lebanon following a November 2024 ceasefire. A short-lived new ceasefire has been announced, but both Israel and Hezbollah have warned people not to return to the south, and Allawiya and Wehbe say they will stay away because it remains too dangerous.
Allawiya was born in Maroun al-Ras near the Israeli border. Israeli forces invaded in 1982; their home was destroyed and southern Lebanon was occupied for 18 years. The family fled north to Beirut’s southern suburbs but returned each summer and rebuilt their house even under occupation. Allawiya speaks of the village, the land, the trees and the olives that have anchored her family for generations. Wehbe remembers checkpoints and permits that restricted movement and compares the experience to life in the Palestinian territories, explaining why she supports the resistance led by Hezbollah.
Hezbollah first emerged during the 1982 invasion, presenting itself as a defender against foreign occupation and winning local support by financing reconstruction with Iranian money and by marking Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 as a victory. For families like the Allawiyas, however, that victory was short-lived: Israeli operations returned in 2006 and again in 2024, and each round destroyed the family home. They rebuilt after 2006, only to be displaced once more last month and forced from their Beirut apartment into the empty building where they are now sheltering.
Not all Lebanese place the blame solely on Israel. Some accuse Hezbollah of drawing the country into repeated conflicts. Wehbe worries that pressure for a ceasefire or Israeli proposals to hold territory north of the border could prompt many to abandon the south. Israel has said it may maintain forces south of the Litani River to create a buffer zone intended to stop rocket fire. Wehbe questions how the south could be removed from Lebanon’s control and says she still sees Hezbollah as the best chance to compel an Israeli withdrawal, as it did in 2000.
About 35 relatives are crammed into the donated apartment building, sharing rooms and hanging baby clothes on balconies. On April 7 they stayed awake waiting for news of a mediated ceasefire between the United States and Iran; early reports suggested it might include Lebanon, and the families prepared to return home. Instead, on April 8, Israel launched a rapid barrage it described as strikes on Hezbollah targets — Lebanese authorities say about 100 strikes in 10 minutes killed more than 350 people and hit parts of central Beirut, shaking the building where the relatives were sheltering. The assault made it clear to them that temporary deals may not last, and they do not trust promises that would let them go back.
They fret about neighbors who remained and try to learn whether houses in the southern suburbs and their village still stand. Allawiya’s dream remains the ancestral home 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 house set to the Egyptian ballad ‘Lebanon in the Heart’; she watches it over and over on her phone and hums along to the refrain.
The war has interrupted daily care and routines: Allawiya’s cancer treatment has been disrupted, one daughter-in-law is seven months pregnant, and grandchildren are out of school and increasingly restless. The families cannot remain in the borrowed apartment indefinitely, but with ceasefires fragile and parts of the south likely to remain under Israeli control for months, they do not know when or if they will be able to return and rebuild once again.