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Today's Paper | March 18, 2026

Published 25 Nov, 2023 11:02pm

Lebanese return to find bombed-out houses near Israel border

Lebanese farmer and minibus driver Abdallah Abdallah has gone back to his village near the Israeli border to find that weeks of bombing had badly damaged his house and destroyed his tractor, AFP reports.

“What can I say? Israel has always been criminal, it has always targeted our houses,” said Abdallah, 50, his face weary as he pointed to gaping holes in the walls of his two-storey home in Aitarun, just across from an Israeli military position.

Abdallah fled after the cross-border skirmishes began, and like others, timidly returned on Saturday to inspect his home, under the incessant buzz of Israeli surveillance drones.

Few frontier residents told AFP they intended to stay, fearing renewed violence after the end of the four-day truce between Israel and Hamas that began on Friday. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that the Iran-backed group would adhere to the truce if Israel did.

“My tractor was destroyed and also the van I used to take the children in the area to school,” said Abdallah, a father of six. The ground around his house was strewn with shrapnel, and burnt fruit trees stood in the garden.

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