The conflict included heavy Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon, along with a ground invasion in the southern regions.
Khodr Sahmarani stood dazed beside the rubble of his home in southern Lebanon, his forehead wrapped in a white bandage, as he looked at the ruins where his brother, nephew, and two neighbours were killed.
“I was upstairs, then I was underground. I screamed, ‘Where are you, where are you?’, but there was no one,” he said after surviving an Israeli airstrike on the city of Nabatiyeh just hours before the ceasefire took effect at midnight on Thursday.
The afternoon strike flattened what residents said was a five-storey building, leaving a mass of shattered concrete in the heavily damaged city.
Rescuer Mohammad Sleiman told AFP that teams recovered one body from the site on Thursday night and three more on Friday morning.
Sahmarani, 57, said rescuers “came and took me out of the rubble.”
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire on Thursday to allow negotiations aimed at ending six weeks of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.
The conflict included large-scale Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon, along with a ground invasion in the south.
Lebanese authorities say the war, which began on March 2, has killed nearly 2,300 people and caused widespread destruction in southern towns and cities, including Nabatiyeh.
President Joseph Aoun said on Friday that “direct negotiations” with Israel are “crucial,” adding that the government aims to “consolidate a ceasefire, secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied southern territories, recover prisoners, and address outstanding border disputes.”
Hezbollah halted military operations after the ceasefire came into effect but warned it was keeping its “finger on the trigger” in case Israel violated the truce.
‘For whose sake?’
On Friday, Nabatiyeh’s streets were largely empty, with many buildings in the city centre damaged or destroyed.
A few kilometres outside the city, a small group of Hezbollah supporters cheered passing cars arriving from Beirut, flashing victory signs and waving the party’s yellow flag.
Deadly Israeli strikes were reported in the final minutes before the ceasefire deadline at midnight on Thursday.
“It was the last hours. If it was the beginning of the war, the middle of the war, one can come to terms with it, but it was the last hours,” Sahmarani said, his eyes bloodshot and tearful.
