Picture showing a traffic jam in Saida which leads to southern villages on the first day of the end of Ramadan holiday known as Eid al-Adha. (Credit: Courtesy of Wael Taleb/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Ali Najdi, 30, a resident of Beirut's southern suburbs, was wondering Tuesday night whether it would be a good idea to visit his village in south Lebanon, a day before Eid al-Fitr to celebrate the end of Ramadan with his relatives. After all, that is what the family does every year.
However, with the ongoing clashes in southern Lebanon, since October, Najdi was hesitant. His village Srifa (Sour) has not been bombed yet, though many villages around it have. What eventually persuaded Najdi to continue the Eid tradition and go south was news of many other people making the same trip.
Southern Lebanon has been experiencing near-daily fighting between Israel and Hezbollah following the Oct. 7 al-Aqsa Flood operation. The bombing has been mostly concentrated on border villages, but in recent weeks has expanded further north of the border as well.
For many people with southern origins, going to the south during the holidays is simply a given, year after year. So this Eid al-Fitr, roads leading to southern Lebanon were jammed with cars full of families heading home for the holiday, according to road trippers who spoke with L'Orient Today.
"Eid al-Fitr is one of the most important holidays generally among my big family, and the tradition of going and visiting all my relatives is something I'm bound to do," Najdi told L'Orinet Today after reaching Srifa.
"I expected the situation to be scary with the sound of drones all over the place but it's not the case. I haven't been to my village Srifa since September 2023 because of the war, but everything is fine here," Najdi added.
For border villages that get bombed almost daily, the situation is different.
Adnan Alyan, the mayor of Khiam, a town on the border, told L'Orient Today that he estimated only 350 families remain out of 2,000 families who stay in the village during the winter and 4,000 who stay there during summer. He added that Eid al-Fitr saw an additional "50 families who came to their villages today to visit the grave of their dead ones," though those visitors were likely to turn around and leave Khiam once again by the end of the day.
In Aita al-Shaab, another border village that experiences almost daily attacks, the situation is similar.
Mayor Mohamad Srour told L'Orient Today that only a few people were visiting his village on Eid. Some of them asked him to get permission from the Lebanese Army to go visit the graves of their dead loved ones, especially those who died in the war — in the hopes that UNIFIL peacekeepers could facilitate a safe visit to the graves.
Many civilians and Hezbollah members have died in Aita al-Shaab since the beginning of the war.
'This is the land of our ancestors'
In Hebarrieh, a village in the Hasbaya district that is close to the border, an Israeli strike killed seven young paramedics at a local medical clinic last month. Some local families came to celebrate Eid in the village but not in the usual high spirits of the holiday, several residents told L'Orient Today.
A picture from Hebbariyyeh of a poster the seven paramedics who were under the age of 25 who were killed in an Israeli strike on a health center of the village in March. (Credit: Mohamad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
"I came with my siblings here as we did not want to celebrate Eid without our parents who are old, and wouldn't want to leave their village despite the ongoing attacks and the struggle," 36-year-old Alaa Ibrahim, a resident of Hebbariyyeh, told L'Orient Today.
"This is the land of our ancestors. We will not leave it and I wish that all southerners would come to their villages to celebrate the Eid," Ibrahim added.
The war in south Lebanon has taken the lives of more than 50 Lebanese civilians and more than 200 Hezbollah fighters in addition to significant destruction in the infrastructure in south Lebanon, according to L'Orient Today's count.