BEIRUT (AP) – A ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah appeared to be holding yesterday, as residents in cars heaped with belongings streamed back toward southern Lebanon despite warnings from the Israeli and Lebanese military that they stay away from certain areas.
If it holds, the ceasefire would bring an end to nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated in mid-September into all-out war. It could give some reprieve to the 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by the fighting and the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along the border with Lebanon.
The United States (US)- and France-brokered deal, approved by Israel late Tuesday, calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border. Thousands of additional Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the US would monitor compliance.
Israel said it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah should it violate the terms of the deal.
The deal would not address the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is still fighting Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border raid into southern Israel in October 2023.
But President Joe Biden on Tuesday said his administration would make another push in the coming days to try to renew efforts for a deal there.
Hours before the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect, Israel launched broad strikes that shook the Lebanese capital Beirut and a volley of rockets from Hezbollah set off air raid sirens across a large swath of northern Israel. But after the ceasefire took effect early yesterday, quiet appeared to take hold, prompting waves of Lebanese to head home.
Israel’s Arabic military spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned displaced Lebanese not to return to their villages in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese military asked displaced returning to southern Lebanon to avoid frontline villages and towns near the border where Israeli troops are still present until they withdraw.
But some videos circulating on social media show displaced Lebanese defying these calls and returning to villages in the south near the coastal city of Tyre. Israeli troops were still present in parts of southern Lebanon after Israel launched a ground invasion in October.
On the highway linking Beirut with south Lebanon, thousands of people drove south with their belongings and mattresses.
