BEIRUT, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Sameh Abu Ali was a resident of Bar'ashit, a town in southern Lebanon. Following the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah along the border in October 2023, the man had to leave his hometown and fled to a displacement shelter in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.

Later, as the conflict between the two sides escalated after the killing of Hezbollah leader Fouad Shokor in late July, Ali moved again to Aramoun, a place into the mountain that he thought might be safer.

Having rent a house there for days, the man now decided to return to Tyre. The decision was made a day after he heard a speech from Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah calling on southern Lebanese to return home.

"I decided to return with my family to Tyre the day after Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's speech, but I've kept the house in Aramoun as there are no agreements on the horizon between the concerned parties to end the confrontations, neither in Gaza nor southern Lebanon," he said.

Still, heading back home does not set Ali's heart at ease. "The situation remains fragile, cautious, and worrying," he said.

Amid a mingling of hope and fear, many Lebanese with southern roots like Ali who have been displaced twice now chose to return from their second displacement shelter to their first, or even back to their hometown along the border.

Such a choice has been made by 50-year-old Rana Daoud, who, together with her family members, collected their belongings, left their second displacement shelter in Aley and headed back to their first in the southern city of Nabatieh, and also by Hussein Awad, who was displaced with his family from the border town of Bint Jbeil to Tyre and then to the mountainous town of Bhamdoun.

Awad told Xinhua he decided to leave the house offered by an old friend in Bhamdoun and return home, as he thought Hezbollah has signaled to Israel that it is done with its retaliation on the death of Shokor and wishes to return to the limited rules of engagement both sides have followed for much of the Gaza war.

"My friend offered us his house for free in Bhamdoun, but we could not stay longer after Hezbollah's response and the words of Nasrallah calling on people to return to their homes," he said.

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.

On Aug. 25, Israeli and Hezbollah forces engaged in extensive exchanges of fire along the border, marking a significant escalation in their longstanding conflict.

Hezbollah announced it had launched hundreds of missiles into Israel in retaliation for the killing of Shokor in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut in late July. In response, Israel reported conducting numerous preemptive airstrikes targeting Hezbollah's rocket launchers in southern Lebanon.

Following the crossfire in late August, Nasrallah said in a televised speech that Hezbollah "will consider the response process complete" if it finds the result of the attacks satisfactory, and "will reserve the right to respond later" if it is not.

According to the Lebanese Interior Ministry, there have been about 100,000 Lebanese displaced since the onset of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in October last year, among which more than 30,000 have been displaced twice.

In the first week following the crossfire on Aug. 25, some 65 percent of the displaced Lebanese returned to their hometowns or first displacement shelters in Tyre, Nabatieh and Hasbaya, the ministry added.

"The recent speech by Nasrallah and Lebanon's success in passing the decision to extend the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) without amendments" for another year provided relief to some extent to those from the south, said Hussein Halabi, a Lebanese displaced from the border area to the city of Aley.

These displaced Lebanese made the decision out of "a state of cautious optimism," Halabi said. Enditem

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