‘We want to be 100% sure’: war-weary Lebanese greet truce with caution

H ours after the US-Iran ceasefire was announced, residents of south Lebanon began to race back to their villages. One man filmed as he drove into the entrance of Harees, his arrival interrupted as the car in front of him suddenly veered off the road. An Israeli armoured vehicle was parked in the middle of the road less than 100 metres ahead; he scrambled to turn around. “It was packed with explosives. I guess they still want to blow things up,” said Abdullah al-Ali, a municipal official in Harees. Ali added that the entrance to the town was blocked off after two other explosive-laden vehicles left by the Israelis were discovered in the area. The Lebanese army and civil defence told people not to return to their villages, warning that the war, which had so far claimed almost 3,800 lives in Lebanon , was not yet over. Their point was punctuated by the Israeli shelling that met people attempting to return to their homes south of the city of Nabatieh, still occupied by Israeli soldiers. It was the third ceasefire declared in Lebanon in less than two months; the fourth in two years. This time, war-weary Lebanese did not greet the apparent truce as they had before, with fingers held up in a V for victory sign, but with a question. Would it last? “How many times has this happened before? I have mixed feelings, there’s joy, I’m excited. …