Damaged bridge marks fragile return for displaced families in southern Lebanon

A damaged bridge over the Litani River became the first sign that return in southern Lebanon would be incomplete, uncertain and dangerous. After a 10-day ceasefire took effect at midnight in Beirut on April 17, tens of thousands of displaced Lebanese began heading back toward the south, even as officials warned that the truce rested on fragile ground.

The route itself showed how much the war had rearranged daily life. On April 16, an Israeli strike destroyed the Qasmiyeh bridge, and Human Rights Watch said the blow effectively cut off territory south of the Litani River from the rest of Lebanon. Reuters reported that the crossing reopened only as a single lane for returning residents, a narrow passage for families carrying what remained of their lives back into battered towns.

The human toll behind the return was stark. United Nations humanitarian reporting said more than 2,000 people had been killed and about 1.2 million displaced in Lebanon since the escalation began on March 2, including more than 140,000 people sheltering in collective sites. UNICEF said in March that more than 370,000 children had been forced from their homes in just three weeks, a measure of how deeply the fighting had torn through civilian life.

That made the scenes on the road south feel both hopeful and strained. Reuters described children flashing victory signs and drivers cheering one another as they crossed the damaged span near Tyre, but the mood shifted once people reached villages where homes and neighborhoods had been described as devastated or unliveable. The Lebanese army urged residents to delay returning, while Hezbollah warned it had its “finger on the trigger” if Israel violated the ceasefire. The United Nations secretary-general welcomed the truce and called on all sides to respect it.

The caution reflected hard memory as much as current risk. In January 2025, Israeli forces killed at least 22 people in south Lebanon, including a Lebanese Army soldier, as civilians tried to return to their villages, and 124 others were injured, according to Lebanese authorities. For families crossing the shattered bridge now, the road back was open only in the narrowest sense.