The Fort Worth Press - Despite truce, Lebanese from devastated Naqura cannot go home

USD -
AED 3.673017
AFN 73.4977
ALL 95.801445
AMD 396.560156
ANG 1.8026
AOA 911.999741
ARS 1056.375098
AUD 1.591675
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.701353
BAM 1.885381
BBD 2.019473
BDT 121.521184
BGN 1.883125
BHD 0.376914
BIF 2926
BMD 1
BND 1.353545
BOB 6.910979
BRL 5.764898
BSD 1.000145
BTN 86.863098
BWP 13.844129
BYN 3.273148
BYR 19600
BZD 2.009091
CAD 1.429805
CDF 2870.000429
CHF 0.913435
CLF 0.024925
CLP 956.494181
CNY 7.309049
CNH 7.309505
COP 4167.1
CRC 506.193667
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 106.75028
CZK 24.114398
DJF 177.720512
DKK 7.176095
DOP 62.296279
DZD 135.328992
EGP 50.616699
ERN 15
ETB 126.250334
EUR 0.962065
FJD 2.313799
FKP 0.805029
GBP 0.80298
GEL 2.819788
GGP 0.805029
GHS 15.449894
GIP 0.805029
GMD 71.496828
GNF 8656.00024
GTQ 7.721598
GYD 209.467439
HKD 7.788985
HNL 25.680102
HRK 7.251419
HTG 130.997253
HUF 387.302851
IDR 16382.6
ILS 3.593028
IMP 0.805029
INR 86.981802
IQD 1310
IRR 42087.497941
ISK 141.04029
JEP 0.805029
JMD 157.48783
JOD 0.709503
JPY 154.167991
KES 128.999814
KGS 87.450135
KHR 4010.000027
KMF 474.549753
KPW 899.949487
KRW 1451.999983
KWD 0.30895
KYD 0.833482
KZT 504.44649
LAK 21724.999662
LBP 89599.999907
LKR 297.161035
LRD 197.450263
LSL 18.530106
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.910233
MAD 9.982501
MDL 18.838659
MGA 4709.999723
MKD 59.231839
MMK 2098.968351
MNT 3459.546067
MOP 8.02383
MRU 40.160147
MUR 46.803992
MVR 15.397323
MWK 1736.999948
MXN 20.542699
MYR 4.467504
MZN 63.90194
NAD 18.529884
NGN 1506.1403
NIO 36.750315
NOK 11.255301
NPR 138.982103
NZD 1.772525
OMR 0.385018
PAB 1.000159
PEN 3.713499
PGK 4.008961
PHP 57.95993
PKR 279.000295
PLN 4.00645
PYG 7870.053502
QAR 3.640497
RON 4.788198
RSD 112.655006
RUB 94.000558
RWF 1401
SAR 3.750596
SBD 8.446964
SCR 14.374883
SDG 601.000073
SEK 10.86642
SGD 1.352325
SHP 0.823587
SLE 22.830447
SLL 20969.523004
SOS 571.500541
SRD 35.204998
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.751145
SYP 13001.290013
SZL 18.529617
THB 34.009498
TJS 10.92703
TMT 3.5
TND 3.185503
TOP 2.342103
TRY 36.112185
TTD 6.785657
TWD 32.874902
TZS 2590.000028
UAH 41.840652
UGX 3679.56813
UYU 43.341206
UZS 12999.999962
VES 61.269331
VND 25565
VUV 122.958521
WST 2.838658
XAF 632.339133
XAG 0.030968
XAU 0.000344
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.765797
XOF 635.502952
XPF 115.250058
YER 247.999787
ZAR 18.5164
ZMK 9001.172598
ZMW 27.980354
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    1.8700

    66.72

    +2.8%

  • RYCEF

    0.0600

    7.67

    +0.78%

  • RIO

    0.3900

    62.04

    +0.63%

  • CMSC

    -0.1800

    23.28

    -0.77%

  • RELX

    0.1100

    51.44

    +0.21%

  • CMSD

    -0.1800

    23.71

    -0.76%

  • NGG

    -0.9000

    60.58

    -1.49%

  • BTI

    0.2200

    42.74

    +0.51%

  • GSK

    0.0600

    36.13

    +0.17%

  • BCC

    -4.6000

    118.72

    -3.87%

  • SCS

    -0.0500

    11.93

    -0.42%

  • VOD

    0.0900

    8.59

    +1.05%

  • AZN

    1.7000

    74.43

    +2.28%

  • BCE

    0.3800

    23.26

    +1.63%

  • BP

    0.1300

    34.68

    +0.37%

  • JRI

    -0.0200

    12.85

    -0.16%

Despite truce, Lebanese from devastated Naqura cannot go home
Despite truce, Lebanese from devastated Naqura cannot go home / Photo: © AFP

Despite truce, Lebanese from devastated Naqura cannot go home

All signs of life have disappeared from the bombed-out houses and empty streets of the Lebanese border town of Naqura, but despite a fragile Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire that has held since November, no one can return.

Text size:

The Israeli military is still deployed in parts of Lebanon's south, days ahead of a January 26 deadline to fully implement the terms of the truce.

The deal gave the parties 60 days to withdraw -- Israel back across the border, and Hezbollah farther north -- as the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers redeployed to the south.

The Lebanese military has asked residents of Naqura not to go back home for their own safety after Israel's army issued similar orders, but in spite of the danger, Mayor Abbas Awada returned to inspect the destruction.

"Naqura has become a disaster zone of a town... the bare necessities of life are absent here," he said in front of the damaged town hall, adding he was worried a lack of funds after years of economic crisis would hamper reconstruction.

"We need at least three years to rebuild," he continued, as a small bulldozer worked to remove rubble near the municipal offices.

Lebanese soldiers deployed in coastal Naqura after Israeli troops pulled out of the country's southwest on January 6, though they remain in the southeast.

The Israelis' withdrawal from Naqura left behind a sea of wreckage.

Opposite the town hall, an old tree has been uprooted. Empty, damaged houses line streets filled with rubble.

Most of the widespread destruction occurred after the truce took hold, Awada said.

"The Israeli army entered the town after the ceasefire" and "destroyed the houses", he said.

"Before the ceasefire, 35 percent of the town was destroyed, but after the truce, 90 percent of it" was demolished, he added, mostly with controlled explosions and bulldozers.

- Smell of death -

Under the November 27 ceasefire deal, which ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese army has 60 days to deploy alongside UNIFIL peacekeepers in south Lebanon as Israel withdraws.

At the same time, Hezbollah is required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the south.

Both sides have accused each other of violations since the truce began.

Around the nearby UNIFIL headquarters, houses are still intact, but almost everywhere else in Naqura lies destruction.

Facades are shorn from bombed-out houses, while others are reduced to crumpled heaps, abandoned by residents who had fled for their lives, leaving behind furniture, clothes and books.

AFP saw a completely destroyed school, banana plantations that had withered away and unharvested oranges on trees, their blossoming flowers barely covering the smell of rotting bodies.

On Tuesday, the civil defence agency said it had recovered two bodies from the rubble in Naqura.

Lebanese soldiers who patrolled the town found an unexploded rocket between two buildings, AFP saw.

In October 2023, Hezbollah began firing across the border into Israel in support of its ally Hamas, a day after the Palestinian group launched its attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

An Israeli army spokesperson told AFP that its forces were committed to the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.

They said the army was working "to remove threats to the State of Israel and its citizens, in full accordance with international law".

- 'We want the wars to end' -

On the coastal road to Naqura UNIFIL and the Lebanese army have set up checkpoints.

Hezbollah's yellow flags fluttered in the wind, but no fighters could be seen.

Twenty kilometres to the north, in Tyre, Fatima Yazbeck waits impatiently in a reception centre for the displaced for her chance to return home.

She fled Naqura 15 months ago, and since then, "I haven't been back", she said, recounting her sadness at learning her house had been destroyed.

Ali Mehdi, a volunteer at the reception centre, said his home was destroyed as well.

"My house was only damaged at first," he said. "But after the truce, the Israelis entered Naqura and destroyed the houses, the orchards and the roads."

In the next room, Mustafa Al-Sayed has been waiting with his large family for more than a year to return to his southern village of Beit Lif.

He had been forced to leave once before, during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

"Do we have to take our families and flee every 20 years?" he asked. "We want a definitive solution, we want the wars to end."

A.Nunez--TFWP