Special report: Israel-Lebanon
Conflicts [Video] [Gallery]
Special report: Israel, Lebanon agree on
ceasefire
DAMASCUS/BEIRUT, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese
refugees, displaced by the monthlong Israel-Hezbollah conflict, eagerly stepped
on their journey home on Monday, hours after a UN-brokered truce came into
force.
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Vehicles loaded with Lebanese citizens
and their belongings queue up in northern Lebanon on the way back home
from Syrian capital city Damascus, Aug. 14, 2006. The UN-brokered
ceasefire went into effect at GMT 0500 Monday. The month-old conflict
between Israel and Hezbollah has caused at least 150 Israeli and 1,100
Lebanese dead.(Xinhua
Photo) |
Dozens of
cars and minibuses full of refugees queued at the Syrian border crossing of
Dabussiyeh, about 220 km northwest of Damascus, where Lebanese national flags,
Hezbollah flags and portraits of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah could be seen
waving over the vehicles.
One placard hanging atop a car reads "Resistance
means victory. We go back home with our chins up."
"We heard the news of ceasefire from the satellite
television yesterday and decided to go back home today immediately," Ali Alawieh
told Xinhua, when he was awaiting at the Dabussiyeh crossing with his
seven-member family in a minibus.
The 19-year-old man said he fled home in a southern
border village to Syria on July 24, 12 days after the eruption of the
Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
"But we knew from the TV footage many days ago that
our house was flattened by Israeli airstrikes, which heavily pounded our village
and destroyed most houses there," he said.
When asked about where his family planned to go now
that their house was shattered, he said that they would come to a relative
living in another village in southern Lebanon.
"No matter whether our house was there or not, at
least the conflict ended and we could go back home now," he said.
"We want to return home as early as possible and we
want to reassure our relatives who stayed in Lebanon during the war," said Abu
Ali Alluba, a Lebanese man who lived in a refugee center in the Mediterranean
port city of Lattakia.
"There are hundreds of families in the refugee center
in Lattakia who, like me, are hoping to return to our country soon, though it
has been plagued by Israeli forces," Alluba said. During the monthlong conflict,
Israeli forces destroyed plenty of Lebanese infrastructures, such as roads,
bridges, power plants and gas houses.
"We go back for reconstruction and all of us wished
for a return of security and stability after the ceasefire," said Alluba, who
was saddened by destruction of his house and killing of his relatives.
Mohamed Zayedulon, coming from south Beirut which had
been frequently pounded by Israeli warplanes, said he would continue his
business in Lebanon after return.
About 180,000 Lebanese refugees have been taking
shelters across Syria with assistance from the Syrian Health Ministry, the
Syrian Red Crescent and ordinary Syrian families.
Border officials at Dabussiyeh, now the only gate
connecting the two neighbors, simplified customs procedures to facilitate the
return flux, just as they did when refugees flooded in after the conflict
erupted over a month ago.
Madel Hayek, a member of the Syrian Red Crescent,
told Xinhua that he had been working at Dabussiyeh since the first day of the
conflict to offer food, water and shelters to the fleeing Lebanese.
The Lebanese authorities estimate that 900,000 people
were displaced by the conflict, and of the total, over 200,000 left Lebanon and
most of them went to Syria, and that more than 6,500 homes were destroyed in
Israeli attacks, mainly in the south of the country as well as the Bekaa Valley
and southern suburbs of Beirut.
Before a UN-brokered truce took effect at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Monday, some 1,100 Lebanese people, mostly civilians, and about 156 Israelis had been killed. Enditem
