The Lebanese Army said on Thursday that it had moved troops into Hezbollah strongholds outside Beirut and in the country’s south and east to pave the way for people to return, while Israel’s military said its fighter jets struck a Hezbollah site in the south and warned Lebanese civilians not to come back to villages near the border yet.
Lebanon was on edge as it entered the second day of a fragile cease-fire between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah, and it was not immediately clear what impact the strike would have or whether it violated the agreement. Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the strike.
In the morning, the agreement, which at least temporarily ended Lebanon’s deadliest conflict since the end of its civil war in 1990, appeared to largely be holding. The war forced roughly a quarter of Lebanon’s population to flee their homes, and thousands of them began to make the trek back to their war-ravaged communities, particularly in the south and east, on Wednesday after the U.S.-brokered cease-fire took effect.
The cease-fire agreement calls for a 60-day truce and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, but is less clear about when civilians may be allowed to return home.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said it had opened fire toward people who had arrived in several areas of southern Lebanon because they were violating the agreement. The statement referred to them as “suspects” but did not elaborate on who they were and did not immediately respond to a request for more details.
Avichay Adraee, an Arabic language spokesman for the Israeli military, said that residents who had fled towns in the far south should stay away “until further notice,” and that movement within those towns was prohibited. Later, he said the military would impose a nighttime curfew in the area.
“Anyone who moves south of this line — puts himself in danger,” he said.
Lebanon’s military said it was operating “temporary checkpoints” and detonating unexploded ordnance in the areas where it had deployed, and was also working to open roads that had been closed or damaged during the fighting. It said its goal was to help displaced people return to their homes.
One of those who went back home was Taflah Amar, 79. She returned to Baalbek, in Lebanon’s northeast, on Thursday after two months in Beirut. She said she had “been crying all day.”
“I’m an old woman,” said Ms. Amar, who returned home to find much of her neighborhood destroyed. “I’m not affiliated with anyone. What did I do to deserve this?”
Some of the most heavily damaged communities in Lebanon are the towns along its border with Israel. For years they were effectively governed by Hezbollah, the militant group backed by Iran.
Beginning in October 2023, the group used those towns to launch near-daily rocket attacks on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas, its Iran-backed ally in the Gaza Strip. The attacks forced tens of thousands in Israel to flee their homes. But few in Israel, where the government has provided assistance to people who fled the conflict, appeared eager to rush back when the truce began.
“We have no intention of going back home yet,” said Gal Avraham, 29, a dog trainer from Margaliot, a small village in Israel just 200 yards from the border. Ms. Avraham and her husband took advantage of the cease-fire to visit their home for the first time in over a year. The house, which they had abandoned in haste, reeked of rotted food left behind after the electricity failed, she said.
Several homes in the village were damaged and many henhouses were destroyed. Ms. Avraham expressed doubts that the cease-fire would hold, citing a siren that sounded overnight in a nearby border town as a reminder of the lingering instability. “As far as we know, no one is returning home,” she said.
Israel intensified its military response to Hezbollah’s attacks in mid-September and began a ground invasion on Oct. 1. The war killed about 3,800 Lebanese and 100 Israelis, according to their governments.
Under the cease-fire agreement, both Israel and Hezbollah will observe a 60-day truce. During that time, Israel will gradually withdraw its military from Lebanon, and Hezbollah will move its fighters out of southern Lebanon, creating a sort of buffer zone between Israel’s border and the Litani River.
The area will be policed by a U.N. peacekeeping force and Lebanon’s military, which has not been a party to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The deal was mediated by the United States and France, and formally accepted by the governments of Israel and Lebanon.
But the timeline for complete implementation of the agreement remains uncertain. Israel has said its actions will depend on how events unfold in Lebanon, and has vowed to strike if it sees Hezbollah resume hostile activity. A similar cease-fire that ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 was never fully enforced.
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