Dahiyeh families displaced by war now trapped by identity | Israel attacks Lebanon

Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon – Fatima Kandeel, 43, and her two children moved to a new rented apartment in the South Beirut suburbs in March.

They stayed with their leg with their sister Aida near four months after a high fire Bethaals Israel and Lebanon had stopped the sausage, but not all, or Israel’s attacks against Lebanon, and felt good to have her own place.

In his living room barely furnished in Laylake, Dahiyeh, with only two armchairs and a Shisha pipe among them, the walls make it clear where the family is.

A photo framed by Hezbollah’s murdered leader, Hassan Nasrallah, hangs along with the portrait of a martyr of the Fatima nephew, 21, a Hezbollah fighter killed in an Israeli air strike in Jnoub in October.

In the rubble, house remains

When the war in Gaza begged on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah declared his support for Palestine and intensified tensions along the border of Israel-Liban for approximately a year until Israel invaded and launched a war of complete shortage.

Dahiyeh’s suburbs have been repeatedly attacked in Israeli strikes, since it is widely recognized as a strength of Hezbollah.

The family’s previous home in there is El-Selom de Dahiyeh, 10 minutes at the foot of Laylake, was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in October.

However, Fatima was warm and hopeful in early June, her hazelnut eyes still smiled from under the hijab while recounted the pain of loss, displacement and difficulties.

Energetic and safe, he spoke expressly, using his hands as if he were on stage.

Like many Lebanese hosts, he sacrificed drinks and an invitation for lunch while talking about how it was to feel under attack in Dahiyeh and if that changed his relationship with his NightBorhouse.

After his family’s house was destroyed and fled to Aida’s, Fatima said, his children, Hassan, 24, Hussein, 20, managed to save two cabinets and a bed of the debris along with their live live live live live live.

Proud of that little victory, Fatima opened the doors of the bedroom to show the two restored cabinets to the point that it would be difficult to guess that they had a leg in a bombing. The rescued bed is used by one of their children after obtaining new slats and a new life opportunity.

“These are the most important furniture in the house,” he said, gently running his hand on one of the damaged surfaces.

“They are historical [because they survived]. I was so happy that we have recovered them. “

Hassan and Hussein found more in the rubble of their home: a stuffed toy that Habsan used to play and some of his mother’s library books.

While talking, Fatima held the teddy toy in her hands, smiling and looking at him. Hussein was silently watching his mother while sharing his thoughts.

“He used to sleep with him at his side every night,” Fatima recalled. “I could not save much from his childhood after my divorce, but maintained this, and now he also survived the war.”

In the bedroom, a small table has a stack of books on history, religion and culture, a fragment of what was once owned.

Scars, visible and invisible

From the balcony of the living room, the scars of the war are visible. The upper floors of a neighboring building have been destroyed, the lower floors are still standing, a daily reminder of what was lost.

However, Fatima has Dahiyeh dear and is determined to stay.

“I love people here,” he said. “Everyone is a child … Dahiyeh is at home.”

Hussein agreed that he feels more at home in Dahiyeh with his strong sense of community and friends everywhere.

Duration The war, the emotionally stressed fight and getting into the fights. He has seen two therapists, but he has felt a lot of improvement.

Unlike his mother, Hussein is open to the idea of leaving Dahiyeh, but pointed out the practical aspects: rentals and the general cost of living outside Dahiyeh are much higher if they could find a place to run.

And, he said, they could face sectarian discrimination if they move.

The family had to abandon Dahiyeh briefly the Israel war in Lebanon and sought refuge in the close coastal suburb of Beirut in Jnah. Fatima still has a painful memory of that time.

The owner of a Jnah’s grocery store commented Snidely: “Look at those Shiped Garbage people”, while looking at the newcomer families dressed in shoes and pajamas where they fled.

The comment left a scar, and she refuses to leave Dahiyeh again.

“If the war returns, what do you teach the next generation?” She asked. “What is okay to give up your home? Or do you stay firm?”

‘If only it was me, I would stay’

While Fatima has chosen to stay in Dahiyeh, her 55 -year -old sister, Iman, wants to leave.

Iman lives with her husband, Ali, a plaster foreman, and her four children: Hassan, 25, programmer; Fatima, 19, university student; And 16 -year -old twins Mariam and Marwa, both at school.

All children still share a room in their modest but light and cheerful home.

The living room was full of laughs when Iman sat with Mariam and Hassan, passing the chocolate and juice while the cousins talked in the background.

There were teasing while sharing memories of fear, displacement and resistance.

Dahiyeh has never been completely safe. Its history has formed Bon for the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990 and the Israeli assaults, including the devastating War of 2006.

It is a cycle, said Iman: another war, another wave of fear and displacement. Duration The most recent war in Israel against Lebanon, the family fled several times.

First they get used to Kayfoun’s village in the Governorate of Monte Lebanon at the end of September, but the tensions there were high, and a local man extended rumors of Israeli Inmantades, trying to scare away the displaced families.

They left Kayfoun after a week and fled to Tripoli in the north, where life was quieter and the presence of nearby relatives offered some comfort, but distrust was delayed.

Iman was judged by Hahab, who marked her as “aligned with resistance” to people who blamed Hezbollah for Israel’s attacks against Lebanon.

“We all became introverted,” Hassan recalled. “We stayed at home most of the time, but we had relationships nearby and with some good friends. We sat together, we played cards. He helped.”

In early October, they followed their friends to the capital of Iraq, Baghdad, where they were hotly welcome, warmer, they said, than in parts of Lebanon.

After the stop the fire, they returned. “There is no better place than our country,” Iman insisted, but Dahiyeh no longer feels safe despite his deep links with the neighborhood, so he is looking for a new home, any more sure place.

“If it were just me, I would stay,” he said. “But I have children. I have to protect them.”

‘They don’t run to Shiite families’

Imanan’s son, Hassan, recalls the first time that Israel bombed near his apartment, on April 1 in breach of the high the fire of November.

“I just wanted to leave,” he said. “I don’t care where we are going. Only in a place other than a goal.”

But finding a new place to rent is far from being simple.

They consulted to Hazmieh. It is close to Dahiyeh but it is not part of him, which makes him relatively safer. And I would be closer to Iman Mariam’s sister, who lives there.

But Iman said: “In Hazmieh, most of them do not rent to Shiite families, or would double the price.”

Despite the growing fear, the family does not want to leave Lebanon, and Hassan has rejected a work sacrifice abroad. They are exhausted, they said, but they are not ready to leave their country.

Just in the middle of the war, Hassan said, his parents did not want to leave Dahiyeh. He had to work to convince them that Kayfoun went first, after any way, Iraq.

It was the same after the stop the fire with long discussions about whether to leave, and it was the fear of his mother for his children that made any Vally agreed.

But more than a month after they talked to Al Jazeera in early June, they are still looking for a place that will take them and can afford.