Dahiyeh families displaced by war now trapped by identity

Al Jazeera

3 days ago

Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon – Fatima Kandeel, 43, and her two sons moved into a new rented apartment in the southern suburbs of Beirut in March.
They had been staying with her sister Aida nearby for four months after a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon had stopped the worst, but not all, of Israel's attacks on Lebanon, and it felt good to have their own place.
In their barely furnished living room in Laylake, Dahiyeh, with only two armchairs and a shisha pipe between them, the walls make clear where the family stands.
A framed photo of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hangs beside a martyr's portrait of Fatima's 21-year-old nephew, a Hezbollah fighter killed in an Israeli air strike in Jnoub in October.
In the rubble, scraps of home
When the war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah declared its support for Palestine and escalated tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border for about a year until Israel invaded and launched full-scale war.
The suburbs of Dahiyeh have been repeatedly targeted in Israeli strikes as it is widely recognised as a Hezbollah stronghold.
The family's previous home in Dahiyeh's Hay el-Selom, a 10-minute walk from Laylake, was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in October.
Yet Fatima was warm and hopeful in early June, her hazel eyes still smiling from below her hijab while recounting the pain of loss, displacement and hardship.
Energetic and confident, she spoke expressively, using her hands as if she were on stage.
Like many Lebanese hosts, she offered drinks and an invitation for lunch while chatting about what it was like to feel under attack in Dahiyeh and whether that changed her relationship with her neighbourhood.
After her family's home was destroyed and they fled to Aida's, Fatima said, her sons, 24-year-old Hassan and 20-year-old Hussein, managed to salvage two wardrobes and a bed from the rubble along with other scraps from their lives there.
Proud of that small victory, Fatima flung open the bedroom doors to show off the two wardrobes restored to the point where it would be hard to guess they had been in a bombing. The rescued bed is used by one of her sons after getting new slats and a new lease on life.
'These are the most important pieces of furniture in the house,' she said, gently running her hand over one of the damaged surfaces.
'They're historical [because they survived]. I was so happy we got them back.'
Hassan and Hussein found more in the rubble of their home: a stuffed toy that Hassan used to play with and a few of the books from their mother's library.
As she spoke, Fatima held the stuffed toy in her hands, smiling and looking at it. Hussein was quietly observing his mother as she shared her thoughts.
'He used to sleep with it beside him every night,' Fatima recalled. 'I couldn't save much from their childhood after my divorce, but I kept this, and now it survived the war too.'
In her bedroom, a small table holds a stack of books about history, religion and culture – a fragment of what she once owned.
Scars, visible and invisible
From the living room balcony, the scars of war are visible. The top floors of a neighbouring building have been destroyed, the lower floors still standing – a daily reminder of what was lost.
Yet Fatima holds Dahiyeh dear and is determined to stay.
'I love the people here,' she said. 'Everyone is kind. … Dahiyeh is home.'
Hussein agreed that he feels most at home in Dahiyeh with its strong sense of community and friends and neighbours all around.
During the war, he struggled emotionally, constantly stressed and getting into fights. He has seen two therapists but hasn't felt much improvement.
Unlike his mother, Hussein is open to the idea of leaving Dahiyeh, but he pointed out practicalities – rents and the overall cost of living outside Dahiyeh are much higher if they could find a place to rent.
And, he said, they could face sectarian discrimination if they relocate.
The family had to leave Dahiyeh briefly during Israel's war on Lebanon and sought shelter in the nearby coastal Beirut suburb of Jnah. Fatima still carries a painful memory from that time.
A Jnah grocery store owner snidely remarked: 'Look at those trashy Shia people,' as he looked at newly arrived families dressed in the slippers and pyjamas they fled in.
The comment left a scar, and she refuses to leave Dahiyeh again.
'If war comes again, what do you teach the next generation?' she asked. 'That it's OK to give up your home? Or that you stand your ground?'
'If it were just me, I'd stay'
While Fatima has chosen to stay in Dahiyeh, her 55-year-old sister, Iman, wants to leave.
Iman lives with her husband, Ali, a plastering foreman, and their four children: Hassan, 25, a programmer; Fatima, 19, a university student; and 16-year-old twins Mariam and Marwa, both in school.
All the children still share a single bedroom in their modest but light and joyful home.
The living room was full of laughter as Iman sat with Mariam and Hassan, passing around chocolate and juice while cousins chatted in the background.
There was teasing as they shared memories of fear, displacement and resilience.
Dahiyeh has never been entirely safe. Its history has been shaped by the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War and Israeli assaults, including the devastating 2006 war.
It's a cycle, Iman said – another war, another wave of fear and displacement. During Israel's most recent war on Lebanon, the family fled multiple times.
They first went to Kayfoun village in the Mount Lebanon governorate in late September, but tensions there were high, and a local man spread rumours of imminent Israeli strikes, trying to scare displaced families away.
They left Kayfoun after a week and fled to Tripoli in the north, where life was quieter and the presence of nearby relatives offered some comfort, but mistrust lingered.
Iman was often judged by her hijab, which marked her as 'resistance-aligned' to people who blamed Hezbollah for Israel's attacks on Lebanon.
'We all became introverts,' Hassan recalled. 'We stayed home most of the time, but we had relatives nearby and met some good friends. We'd sit together, play cards. It helped.'
In early October, they followed friends to Iraq's capital, Baghdad, where they were welcomed warmly – more warmly, they said, than in parts of Lebanon.
After the ceasefire, they returned. 'There's no place better than our country,' Iman insisted, but Dahiyeh does not feel safe to her any more despite her deep ties to the neighbourhood, so she is searching for a new home – anywhere that's safer.
'If it were just me, I'd stay,' she said. 'But I have kids. I have to protect them.'
'They don't rent to Shia families'
Iman's son Hassan recalls the first time Israel bombed near their apartment – on April 1 in breach of the November ceasefire.
'I just wanted out,' he said. 'I don't care where we go. Just somewhere that isn't a target.'
But finding a new place to rent is far from simple.
They considered moving to Hazmieh. It is close to Dahiyeh but not part of it, making it relatively safer. And it would be closer to Iman's sister Mariam, who lives there.
But Iman said: 'In Hazmieh, most of them don't rent to Shia families, or they would double the price.'
Despite the mounting fear, the family does not want to leave Lebanon, and Hassan has turned down a job offer abroad. They're exhausted, they said, but not ready to abandon their country.
Even in the midst of war, Hassan said, his parents did not want to leave Dahiyeh. He had to work on convincing them to go first to Kayfoun, then eventually Iraq.
It was the same after the ceasefire with long discussions about whether to leave, and it was his mother's fear for her children that made her eventually agree.
But more than a month after they spoke to Al Jazeera in early June, they're still searching for a place that will take them and that they can afford.