HANOUIYEH, Lebanon (AP) — During their 37 years of marriage, Mariam Kourani and her husband ran a butcher shop in southern Lebanon, started a business selling serving containers and opened a small restaurant. An Israeli airstrike in late September destroyed it all. Walking through the rubble of what used to be her house and restaurant in the village of Hanouiyeh, Kourani, 56, watched as her son-in-law picked up some of his young daughter's clothes and toys from the ruins.
“This was my house, my dreams and my hard work,” she said, holding back tears. She pointed to one of the serving containers she used to sell, and estimated her family’s total losses at $120,000. Kourani is among the tens of thousands of residents who have started streaming back into southern Lebanon to check on their homes after the U.
S.-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect early Wednesday. Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are predominantly Shiite areas of Lebanon where Hezbollah has a strong base of support.
Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced. Like Kourani, many are returning home to find that their homes are gone.
The World Bank said earlier this month that housing has been the hardest hit sector with almost 100,000 units partially or fully damaged during the 14-month war, which intensified in late September. It estimated the damage at .