in Lebanon, the suspended life of displaced people from the South in Qmatiye, “a refuge of peace to forget the bombings”

Ismail Dirani warned: “This is going to make me cry.” And Ismail Dirani cried. He has nothing against the village of Qmatiye, nor against its inhabitants. Simply, it will never be his home. “It was the war that brought me and my family here, he grunts, before taking a long drag on his cigarette. It wasn’t our choice, it was a question of safety. Survival.”

The 56-year-old truck driver finds it a long time in this town near Beirut (Lebanon), which he barely knew by name before setting foot there. “How long have we been here?”he asks, Wednesday January 10. “More than two months already”, whispers his wife, Shams, sitting in the living room of the small apartment that the family rents to an acquaintance of an acquaintance, “while waiting for things to calm down, back home, in the South.”

It was there that the Dirani’s lives were turned upside down, one evening at the end of October, at 11:25 p.m., when an Israeli army shell landed. a few dozen meters from their house, in the village of Kounine. That night, “a big boom, then sounds of glass” make them jump out of bed. Some windows are not blast resistant, nor is the lock on the front door. With their four children aged 6, 10, 13 and 16, they took shelter. “And then, at midnight, everyone got in the car, and we drove off, heading north. Two hours drive.”

For years, however, the Dirani have cohabited with the Jewish state. The parents’ bedroom even overlooks the watchtowers and their balcony, on the separation wall between the two countries. “It was part of the decor. It was like that.” The father shows the place on a map: there is barely an inch of space until the border, “less than a kilometer”.

But now, after the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, Hezbollah began targeting Israeli positions again. And Israel responded militarily to the fighters of the Shiite movement. “Living in the South has become unlivable”, breathes Shams, the mother of the family. Since their exile to the North, iIt often happens that a family member wakes up suddenly, thinking they hear the noise of drones. This is because even Beirut is not spared: on January 2, an Israeli strike targeting a building in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital killed Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas number 2.

“We left everything behind and left”

Every week, the same parade. New faces are arriving in the narrow streets of Qmatyie. “I have just welcomed three new families, says the mayor, Nadim Hamadeh, impeccable suit and tie. After three months, we are already at 120 displaced. LMost come to us because they have relatives there. But others had never set foot here before. En fact, as soon as there is a new bombing somewhere in the South, I’m ready to see people arriving.”

The inside of the car trunk says everything about the haste in which those displaced by a war which is now being exported to Lebanese territory left. The Dirani’s traveled the 120 kilometers empty. “Pno one packed a bag. We left everything behind and left. The pants I’m wearing belong to someone in the neighborhood. The down jacket is a gift. The t-shirt too. Nothing is mine”, points out the father, Ismail. Their extra apartment is limited to the bare minimum. A coffee table, two benches, a kettle, a gas stove. In the four children’s room, mattresses are piled up on the floor. The toys are not theirs.

A plan to double the number of refugees

As of January 11, according to figures obtained by franceinfo from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 4,474 Lebanese hadalready found refuge in the Aley district, to which Qmatiye belongs. In total, 82,012 people have so far fled Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon. “Two reasons always come up, analyzes Mathieu Luciano, the head of the IOM in the country: THE violence and fear of escalation. And this is, perhaps, just the beginning. Still according to the IOM, more than 325,000 people live within a radius of 10 kilometers around the “blue line”, this demarcation materialized by a wall and barbed wire between Lebanon and Israel. And therefore within range of the increasingly heavy artillery fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

So far, the Lebanese authorities have not given any specific instructions to their nationals villages in the South. “But people leave on their own, without waiting for recommendations. Our numbers increase with each reading”observes Mathieu Luciano. THE Mayor of Qmatiye notices it every day. The elected official, who does not turn off his phone at night, asked his agents to prepare “all scenarios”, including a massive exodus within the country itself. During the last municipal council, the agenda was mainly devoted to road works, damage caused by rain on the roads and to employees’ salaries. But “We also discussed among ourselves the shelters that we could requisition if necessary. Schools, rooms, yes, but which ones? We are ready to welcome even more people, double that, at least 150.”

“OI don’t care about religion, skin color, opinions.”

100 meters from the town hall, on the main road which crosses Qmatiye, the dispensary is also ready. HUssain Jafar, the manager, regularly pops his head into the medicine cabinet because the medicines go out quickly. “We made new stocks and reordered. In the chaos, some refugees who suffer from chronic illnesses left their homes without taking their treatments.”explains the octogenarian, who was already mobilized in the village in 2006, during the last war between Lebanon and Israel.

A man, in his fifties, hooded sweater on his back, then enters the dispensary. His name is Fadi Ayoub and he fled Hula, his village in the South. Always the same profile: a child, a woman, a partially destroyed house. He is here to ask “heating and blankets, because it’s getting colder and colder”. However, there is no need for a hearing test, as the clinic offers for residents who have recently been faced with repeated bombings. “When someone tells us ‘I come from the South’, we immediately understand the situation, points out Salem Naserden, the dispensary coordinator. OHe doesn’t care about religion, skin color, opinions. No discrimination here. Whoever wants comes and it’s free. We are a refuge of peace to forget the bombings”.

The municipal school of Qmatiye, too, added desks to accommodate those called “children of the South”. PBy chance, those from the Dirani came across a friend in the corridors of the establishment, from the same village as them near the border. During recess, some boys asked 13-year-old Ali why he was new. “I told them it was because of the war”.

The father of the family, Ismail, knocks on the coffee table in the living room: “We die day after day with this mess. The war is ruining us.” During the day, when the children are in class, the parents turn off the heating, because gas is overpriced, in a country already heavily weighed down by an economic crisis. Ismail also skips meals, to prioritize children’s health, and shows his wallet, from which he takes out two bills: “I only have these 20 dollars.”

Sometimes, the Dirani imagine they will never return home to Kounine: “Maybe our house is occupied. Or even destroyed.” In any case, there is no one left to warn them. Their village, which was bombed again in early January, was emptied of its thousand inhabitants. A presentiment, perhaps: Ismail has just approached the transport companies of Qmatiye, to “see if they don’t need drivers for the next few months.”