James Stout

What are people expecting for Beirut?

And what does that ceasefire look like?

As you said, the attacks are still going on in the south.

But what are people expecting for these different parts of Lebanon?

Yeah, the south is still very active.

And yesterday was a particularly brutal day with attacks across the area.

There was forced evacuation orders for areas above the Litani River, which for anyone following, you know, there's been this whole kind of dynamic about disarming Hezbollah below the Litani River, which runs across South Lebanon.

The Israelis have previously issued evacuation orders for above the Litani as well, reaching up to another river called the Zahrani.

According to someone at Human Rights Watch who I spoke to, these evacuation demands to comply with international humanitarian law, they need to be precise, they need to be exact, and they need to be temporary.

You need to leave your home now because we're attacking a target, but...

They can't be open-ended the way that they've been with the Israelis, and they cannot be indiscriminate the way that they've been of demanding the entirety of South Lebanon to move north or the entirety of the southern suburbs.

So attacks on Beirut after Black Wednesday have come to a halt, and this is also true for the southern suburbs, which have been an area whereby they've suffered many, many attacks.

And so it's a bit of a strange respite.

At the same time, I think people have gone home to check on their houses.

Some people have gone home to just stay in their houses for a variety of reasons, either because they might feel that it's safe for this moment or they're hedging their bets.

But still, a lot of people have not returned home.

Many of them cannot.

These are obviously people of the South.

Or you cannot if you've had your home destroyed in the south or in the southern suburbs or parts of the eastern Baka'a Valley.

You know, I've got a school by my house which is hosting displaced people, and it's still filled with the displaced, either because they cannot go home or because, as many have told me, they don't trust that this ceasefire will hold.