The instant return of the refugees to their homes is a clear gesture of defiance against the Israelis.

The Sanaye’h Park that once housed a thousand refugees — to say the least — now lives a bewildering serenity. The paradox truly extends from the linguistic contradiction to the bittersweet feeling of void and staleness.

The volunteers, who once couldn’t find the time to tender their own needs, now sit calmly on a porch in the old house that served as the headquarters of the relief operations. The environment is once again resilient and relaxing, but the will for further help definitely is not. What may seem as a "mission accomplished" status is no more than a transition phase from emergency aid to post-conflict relief.

The vast majority of the displaced families have rushed back to their homes, or at least where their homes used to be. Waiting in a line for car gas, I met Abu Majed, who was on his way to the south. When I asked him where he was originally from, he said: "I’m from Srifa, but I heard it has been wiped off the map."

He seemed rather indifferent about the fact that he has probably lost his house. In reply to my inquiry he said: "I don’t care. I’ll set up a tent on the rubble of my house. ... I will not spend my time moving from one place to another." The instant return of the refugees to their homes is a clear gesture of defiance against the Israelis who kept on asking people not to return to the areas where the Lebanese army had not been deployed yet.

Such defiance inspires those who volunteered to take part in the post-conflict relief work. Just as the displaced families had brought high spirit to the volunteers, they now give them hope that enables them to outlive the expected slow-down of aid efforts. Among the numerous aid groups, Mowatinun is now planning for the continuation of its mission. A group of at least seven volunteers headed for the south in order to conduct a preliminary field study of how the organization can help out those who have returned to villages that have become practically "no man’s land."

The south is in a critical condition. People have died because it would take hours to transfer them to proper hospitals in cases of emergency. Basic products are missing and when supplied through aid agencies, they arrive extremely late. Infrastructure is almost totally destroyed. Water and electricity are not available, and fixing the relevant networks will not be any time soon. This leaves the inhabitants in desperate need for urgent aid measures. The kind of help needed today is more extensive and complex than the kind of help that was needed during displacement.

Like many other southerners, Abu Majed expects to find both his house and shop wiped-off. He also knows that his village has been cut-off from any viable resources. His field has also been mutilated and destroyed by Israeli tanks. With no means of proper living, Abu Majed’s family would require a voluminous aid effort.

One suggestion that Mowatinun is considering is to trace down all the families they had previously helped and to provide them with whatever they need throughout the re-establishment process. The group had archived statistical information on every family they had aided. The information they gathered would allow them to track down the families and to continue providing them with basic foods and materials.

This new phase means that aid groups would now deploy in the areas where the families originally resided. The volunteers are currently discussing the means to help both in the Southern district of Beirut and in south Lebanon. A headquarters in Beirut and regional centers would be the basis of operations in the coming period.

Most volunteers expect to find greater difficulty in bestowing their time for relief efforts. Now, the fact that aid work will require moving to the destroyed regions and working under harder conditions and in remote locations would indicate a bigger amount of allocated resources for the purpose of helping those in need.

The donations that are being received will be used to transfer all the basic needs to the afflicted regions directly. These areas will also require much greater plans that would help the families to rebuild their homes, reinstate living essentials in their villages and use alternative means for the basic infrastructure services that have been destroyed.

Life for the displaced families is now even harder than it had been before they realized the size of damage inflicted on their houses and villages. Their needs are not confined to meals and essentials. They need to return to their normal lives, they need a source of income, education, health services and infrastructure; they need to live the way they lived before the Israeli aggression.

Proper plans to attend to these needs will take huge efforts and even greater sacrifices. The volunteers are eager to prove their support and to continue contributing to the steadfastness of the people. Rayya, a leading volunteer worker, spontaneously told me: "We don’t know how we’ll be able to perform such a big task; it’s like building villages from nothing."

This challenge truly brings a feeling of excitement that one cannot understand but can only feel. Just like the displaced families ignored every imaginable danger and overcame the massive loss of lives and property, the volunteers feel they will proceed towards a bigger and harder task of bringing Lebanon back to life.

As Rayya spoke about the enormity of the task, I stared blankly at the rubble. Someone overhearing us passed by and said: "We will make it. It will be exciting..." That was the overly simple reaction that the volunteers showed upon the sight of the destruction. It reflected a will that has proven itself to be strong enough to defeat the Israelis, to rebuild what has been destroyed and to strengthen the desire for life.