Displaced Lebanese have little faith in temporary Gaza truce

About 40,000 have fled border violence between Hezbollah and Israel

A damaged building in the southern Lebanese village of Dhayra, near the border with Israel. Matt Kynaston / The National

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Displaced Lebanese citizens have expressed doubt that a temporary truce agreed on by Israel and Hamas will hold on Friday.

The four-day halt in fighting is expected to start at 7am local time on Friday (9am UAE time), followed by the release of some of the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas militants on October 7, mediators in Qatar said.

But those living near Lebanon's border with Israel are wary of the agreement remaining in place.

“There is no trust. Who should we trust, even? Israel? They are killing children, the wounded, newborns and the elderly in hospitals. Would you trust them?” asked Baker Ghrayeb, who lives in Dhayra, a village close to Lebanon's southern border.

The village has for the past six weeks been the scene of intense cross-border fire between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.

“I hope we can go back if the fighting stops. It's our land, after all,” he said as children ran around a university hall that has been turned into a makeshift camp for the displaced, while others played inside large tents marked with the UN refugee agency logo.

Mr Ghrayeb fled the intense violence in Dhayra a couple of weeks ago, a village whose population has been reduced to a few dozen. He is now sheltering at the Lebanese German University in Tyre, a city in southern Lebanon spared from fighting, along with 30 families from the same village.

About 40,000 people fled the border violence, which has killed at least 107 people, among them 15 civilians, AFP reported.

On the Israeli side, six soldiers and three civilians have been killed, authorities said.

Israel and armed groups led by Hezbollah have engaged in fighting, following Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7 and the retaliatory strikes on Gaza.

A Hezbollah source told The National on Wednesday that the armed group will halt its attacks on Israel when the temporary truce comes into effect in Gaza, provided Israel also pauses its attacks.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the Lebanon-Israel border was a “front of pressure” to divert some of the Israeli military from Gaza.

But there is uncertainty over the extent to which the pause will be respected in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the country made no commitments regarding violence on its northern border. Hezbollah will be judged “by its actions”, he said.

At the school, some displaced people said they wanted to return to their villages for duration of the pause, while others plan to make intermittent trips to collect winter essentials. The tarpaulin at the university entrance seemingly offers meagre protection against the cold.

Some have opted not to return at all.

The displaced Dhayra residents are still traumatised by events on the night of October 16 to 17, when the village faced heavy Israeli shelling with white phosphorus, a highly toxic substance can cause fires and inflict severe injuries.

They refer to that harrowing night, which emptied most of the village, as the "black evening". Amnesty International has called for an investigation into the incident, saying the attack on civilians could be deemed a "war crime".

“They bombed us from 2am to 6am. We couldn't see anything. We had to wait until morning to be able to leave. I'm young and I was suffocating. Can you imagine what it was like for the elderly?” asked Oday Amer, 29, a farmer who lost all of his crops due to the white phosphorus.

Israel has denied using white phosphorus shells against civilians.

'Lesson learnt'

The situation brought back memories of painful historical events for some in southern Lebanon, from the Israeli occupation of region from 1985 to 2000, to the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel in which 1,200 died on the Lebanese side over 34 days.

“We have learnt the lesson from 2006,” said Ali Abou Samra, 47, a displaced villager. He was referring specifically to an attack on Marwahin, when 23 civilians were killed by an Israeli strike while attempting to flee after Israel ordered them to leave the area.

“The Israeli army said they would not start firing. They gave an hour for people to leave, but they struck anyway. Most of the people who were killed were children, the elderly and women,” he recalled.

It was among the Israeli attacks on civilians in the 2006 war documented by Human Rights Watch, which denounced Israel's “systematic failure” to distinguish between militants and civilians.

“We have no trust in the truce,” said Nader Sweid, 43, a displaced villager from Dhayra who lost his mother in an Israeli strike during the 2006 war.

He said his mother died from her injuries in hospital because an ambulance could not reach her on time, as Israel would not cease its shelling.

The incident is "the best sign that Israel doesn't respect humans. They don't even respect ambulances or civil defence. They will strike anyone", Mr Abou Samra added.