00:00In February, Hussein Reis proudly showed Reuters his newly restored home in southern Lebanon.
00:07He had restored the house after it was badly damaged in 2024 clashes between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
00:15It cost him around $25,000.
00:18But a new war erupted when Hezbollah started firing at Israel,
00:22after the United States and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran on February 28.
00:28His home in Qiyam is about three miles from the border with Israel, putting it in the line of fire.
00:37So Reis and his family reluctantly fled to a relative's home near Beirut,
00:42with little more than the clothes they were wearing.
00:47We couldn't take anything, he says, because it got to the point that they could strike the streets,
00:53close the streets and the bridges.
00:56It wasn't the first time, or even the second.
01:00The 66-year-old has been displaced at least four times in the last four decades
01:05by Israeli incursions and airstrikes, each time he returned to a town in ruins.
01:12At this point, he questions his ability to return and rebuild.
01:19Once again, displacement, return, rebuilding, restoration.
01:23What kind of life is that, he asks.
01:26He says he misses his house dearly, especially the pictures of his children and grandchildren that adorned the walls.
01:36Watching news bulletins of Israeli tanks rolling through the town, Reis has no news on the state of his home.
01:43But he says he feels in his heart that it's just as he left it.
01:47Around 300,000 people have been displaced over the past week by Israel's strikes and its military's evacuation orders.
01:56He says.
01:56He says.
01:57He says.
01:57He says.
Comments