Beirut, Lebanon – When Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire on Wednesday, Adnan Zaid breathed a sigh of relief.He and his family had been up all night because of Israel’s thunderous air strikes on Lebanon’s capital.
The fear subsided after the anticipated ceasefire took effect at 4am, yet uneasiness about the future arose.
“Honestly, I’m still worried that something will happen,” Zaid told Al Jazeera. “I have doubts the ceasefire will hold.”
Zaid is one of about 650 people who fled their homes to a guesthouse run by a local relief group in Karantina, a predominantly low-income district in Beirut.
He is not the only one with mixed feelings about the ceasefire now in place and doubts about whether it will be safe to go home.
Many are eager to rebuild their lives, but some are reluctant to return to war-torn neighbourhoods where homes and livelihoods have been destroyed and all sense of security has vanished.
“All the doors and windows are broken in my home. The roof has caved in, and shrapnel from all the explosions has covered the interior,” Zaid said.
“We can’t go back right now. We need time to fix the place up. It’ll take five or six days for us to figure out if our home can be made liveable.”
Adnan Zaid and his 10-year-ol …
