South Lebanon and the call of home

In the language of international relief, these are the “spontaneous returns” of people who had fled their homes in South Lebanon. In any one else’s terms, this is a human tide of people returning to their villages to start rebuilding after weeks of destruction. Agencies plan as best they can, there are warnings about unexploded bombs, and experts worry about the lack of services like water or schools. But when the people themselves feel that conditions are right, they will simply move of their own accord. En masse.

For those suggesting that refugees and asylum seekers are simply looking for a better life and have no reason to flee, here is the answer: just look at the overwhelming urge to return home despite the dangers involved.

This mass movement homeward is something I’ve seen before. Most of us know the gravitational pull towards our home and land, but it can be so much stronger when it’s somewhere you’ve been forced to leave. That’s why villages in northern Afghanistan echoed to the sounds of rebuilding in 2001, even before the landmines mines were cleared. A return to war-ravaged South Sudan is now high on the agenda for the four million displaced people displaced from there by decades of fighting. And in the Balkans, refugee camps with tens of thousands of people emptied in a matter of days when the war in Kosovo ended in 1999.

One family fled Kosovo just as their fruit trees were coming into flower, not knowing if they would ever see their home again. After weeks in a refugee camp their exile seemed as if it would be endless, and they were allowed to come to Ireland. I will never forget their quiet joy, as they spoke of returning to their home to find it standing, and the oldest son who had been left to mind it still alive. All this as they tended the ripening fruit of that bitter-sweet blossom in their orchard, safe at home once more.

Destruction in South Lebanon

So Lebanon’s pattern of exodus and homecoming is no surprise. Roughly one million people, amounting to a quarter of the population, left their homes in search of safety during the Israeli bombardment in July and August. The vast majority have now returned, even if it’s to live in a UNHCR tent beside their ruined house.

Driving through South Lebanon, it’s easy to believe the government figure that 30,000 homes have been completely destroyed, with the same number again suffering major damage. Some areas seem relatively untouched, and then you come into somewhere like Bent Jbeil, not far from the border with Israel. Houses and public buildings are a mass of shattered concrete. The steel used to reinforce concrete is exposed to the world once more, still twisted and tangled from the moment when it turned to pliable fibres in the disintegrating building.

The destruction of civilian areas is shocking. It is not a justification, but we should be clear about one thing: South Lebanon was the area from which Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel - often indiscriminately towards civilian areas. Amnesty International has been attacked by both Israel and Hezbollah for saying that each of them was guilty of war crimes. Targeting civilians and destroying essential services is not some kind of grey area - the 1949 Geneva Convention and its 1977 Protocols are quite specific about it. Claiming that “the others did it first” is absolutely no defence - quite simply, it is always wrong.

In the end, just over 150 Israelis lost their lives, including civilians in Israel and soldiers killed in the ground offensive in South Lebanon. On the other side of this grim equation, nearly 1,200 Lebanese people died, the vast majority of them civilians. In fact, about a quarter of those killed were children. The bodies of five children were recovered from the rubble just outside Tyre recently, more than a month after the cessation of hostilities.

The clear up begins

In parts of South Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters stood their ground when Israeli ground forces moved in, sometimes resulting in fierce fighting. There are signs of these battles everywhere: buildings which were not reduced to rubble by air strikes and artillery shells have been raked with heavy-calibre gun fire.

So now the work of reconstruction must begin. Hezbollah -whose popularity has soared among some sections of the Lebanese population since its military engagement with Israel - has also been active in its other areas of politics and welfare. A massive rally was held in Beirut at which its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was received as a great hero. And it has been offering funds to those whose houses were destroyed.

Offers of help have been coming in from other Arab countries. In some cases, this has caused resentment among the Christian communities in the south, who presume they will see none of this aid. Sitting outside a church in the hot sun, we tried to get to the root of one priest’s unhappiness and sense of having been abandoned. A colleague asked him directly what exactly was it that he wanted. “We want the same as the others are receiving from Qatar”, he said. In a divided society, relief as well as war can deepen divisions, if it’s not carefully handled.

Lethal leftovers of war

But the most urgent task is to remove the unexploded munitions which make many places dangerous for civilians. It’s termed “unexploded ordnance” (abbreviated to UXO), and the threat is real: at least 14 people have died since the end of the war, with more than 100 injured. The biggest danger comes from the 1.2 million bomblets littering fields and villages. They were dispersed by cluster bombs or artillery shells, which scatter them over a wide area.

Normally about a quarter do not explode on impact, but this time about 40 per cent failed to go off immediately. They lie in wait in streets, in fields, or among the rubble or some one’s house, until they’re disturbed by people clearing up. Worst of all, children are at risk because of their natural curiosity about these strange new objects.

These US-supplied weapons are controversial, to say the least, because they are so indiscriminate. Like landmines - which have been banned by nearly every country in the world - they remain active long after a conflict has finished. The mine will explode regardless of whether it’s a farmer or a soldier stepping on it. The fragmentation bomb doesn’t know that it’s being picked up by an excited child looking for something to play with.

What’s hard to understand is that 90 per cent of the cluster bombs contaminating Lebanon were dropped by Israeli forces in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when everyone was counting down to the official cessation of hostilities which had effectively been agreed at that point.

So far, 578 sites have been identified as being contaminated with unexploded ordnance, amounting to hundreds of square kilometres. Dealing with it is a complex job but the work is already underway. Communities are consulted about what their priorities are, and people are educated about the danger of going into uncleared areas. Then it’s often local people who are trained and employed to carry out the delicate task. Tens of thousands have already been cleared, but it’s expected that it will take between 12 and 15 months to complete the job.

Agriculture disrupted

These weapons don’t just put people in physical danger: they also affect their livelihoods. I had been trying to identify the strange crop I was seeing in some fields, with its tall, dried out stalks and withered leaves. Talking to people in a village later in the day, it became clear. They complained that their tobacco crop was lost as it could not be collected in time, and some fields were still too dangerous to go into. Olive groves, fields, and even grazing land have all been turned into danger zones.

South Lebanon sometimes seems like it’s a place on the move. Along with the returning population, relief agencies and demining teams, there’s a newcomer. As Israeli soldiers withdraw, the Lebanese army has been deploying all the way up to the border with Israel, for the first time in 40 years. During that time, South Lebanon has been in the hands of various militias, of Israeli forces, and of UNIFIL. The fact that the Lebanese army will be present, along with the expanded UN operation, is seen as a sign of hope for the future stability of the region. Small things take on a larger significance: the fact the that Israeli forces are rebuilding their barriers at the border is taken by people as a sign that they’re not planning to come back soon.

The task ahead is huge. Besides the tens of thousands of houses which have been destroyed or badly damaged, the electricity network in South Lebanon has also been systematically targeted. Across the country, more than 500 water supply facilities were also blown up, along with 159 sewage treatment plants, according to government figures. At least 350 schools were damaged or destroyed, as were 52 hospitals or clinics. Transport has been disrupted, as 107 bridges and flyovers have been bombed.

Much of this hardware will eventually be restored. The lives, however, will not. And the international politics which drives all of this, with its twin imperatives of security and territory, now enters yet another phase. On a good day, it seems that the politics of fear, hatred and revenge are tinged with small amounts of hope and goodwill. Tiny, delicate seedlings which can be crushed so easily, seeking life in stony soil.