'Nobody won': Residents of Lebanese city return to rubble

Tens of thousands try to process aftermath of Israel's attacks

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BAALBEK, Lebanon - Hammers clanged against brick and metal as residents of Baalbek set to work repairing their homes, desperate to restart their lives again.

A day after a ceasefire ended Lebanon's deadliest war in decades, tens of thousands of people who fled the violence had already returned on Nov 28 to the hard-hit city in the country's east.

Teenage girls snapped selfies in front of the ancient Roman temples. Excited young men on motorcycles performed doughnuts in the street, their back tires spinning up dust and shards of glass.

But after weeks of pounding Israeli air strikes, the scars were not easy to ignore: Bombed-out restaurants, flattened apartment buildings, trees snapped like twigs. And many of the dead were still buried under the rubble, residents said.

"I am an old woman. I am not affiliated with anyone. What did I do to deserve this?" said Ms Taflah Amar, 79, as she swept debris from the front of her house, one of the few still standing on her street. "I have been crying all day," she said.

For the more than one million people displaced in Lebanon by Israel's offensive, it has been a bittersweet homecoming. In Baalbek, an impoverished city where Hezbollah holds sway, many have returned to find their neighborhoods almost unrecognizable.