Lebanon's south takes a breath as families return to shattered homes and lives

By Jana Choukeir and Khalil Ashawi

TYRE, July 6 (Reuters) - On a beachfront in the coastal city of Tyre, war has finally abated just enough for children to play in the waves and families to gather under parasols as life slowly returns to southern Lebanon.

But away from the shore, people coming home after months of exile are having to adapt to harsh new realities: the threat of conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah flaring up again and the challenge of rebuilding from the destruction Israeli bombs have wreaked on their hometowns.

"People are coming back to Tyre to rebuild, to work — all the restaurants are open again," said local resident Ali Skaiky, wet from a swim in the sea and holding a rubber lilo.

"We still hear strikes and fighting at night, but it's far away. There's destruction beyond imagination, but we hope everything will stay calm."

Skaiky is among some 400,000 people who have returned to southern Lebanon in the weeks since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. The truce has not halted fighting, but it has lowered the intensity.

Returnees are cleaning debris from damaged homes, reopening businesses and trying to rebuild the routines the war shattered. Yet for many, normality now means keeping a suitcase packed, following the news obsessively and never straying too far from home.

For Fadlallah Qassim, 42, returning home meant confronting the destruction the war had left behind, including a hit on his house.

"We returned to find the whole house caved in with rubble, and all the furniture ruined," he said. "I cleaned up, fixed it, and brought some basic things for the house, now my wife, children and I all live in one room."

In the nearby village of Srifa, where entire neighborhoods were damaged, Suzan Fakih, 55, said the hardest part of returning was realising home no longer felt like home.

"The moment you arrive, it doesn't feel like your village anymore," she said. "Everything is black and grey. It hurts your soul. You look around and think, 'This can't be the village I've lived in all my life.'"

'YOU PACK YOUR BAGS AND RUN'

Srifa lies in the deep south of Lebanon, close to where Israeli troops occupy a strip of territory and launch regular attacks on what the Israeli army says are Hezbollah targets. In areas nearby, Israel has demolished almost entire villages.

Fakih said people remain haunted by the possibility they could be forced to flee again.

"I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't living with a bag packed, ready to leave. A few quiet years pass, then you pack your bags and run again," she said.

The ongoing hostilities and levels of destruction have left 600,000 more people internally displaced, according to Lebanon's social affairs ministry. Many families whose homes were destroyed are still living in schools or in the rented homes they fled to during the conflict.

Lebanon has suffered the deadliest spillover of the regional war triggered by the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.

The conflict spread to Lebanon on March 2, when Hezbollah fired on ​Israel in support of Tehran, triggering an Israeli air and ground campaign. At least 3,783 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country's health ministry.

RENTING BACKUP HOMES

Some 20 miles (32 km) farther north, Mohammad Sweid and other residents who recently returned to the Bekaa Valley town of Sohmor, said they live with the same uncertainty.

Sweid still pays rent for the house he and his family fled to during the war, keeping it as a backup home if they need to leave again.

"If something happens again, we may not find another place," the 31-year-old manual worker said.

In the Lebanese capital Beirut, whose suburb of Dahieh has been battered by Israel at intervals over the last two years for being home to Hezbollah's leadership, residents are also cautiously trying to rebuild their lives.

Moussa Ghamloush, 68, has been repairing his bomb-damaged home and reopening his restaurant, which was completely destroyed in a separate strike, but says his permanent home will always be Dahieh.

"We're not the kind of people who leave. Our roots are here. We stayed, and if there's a third war, we'll stay again."

(Reporting by Khalil Ashawi in Tyre, Jana Choukeir and Jihed Abidellaoui in BeirutWriting by John Davison; Editing by Sharon Singleton)