People uprooted by the war in Lebanon began returning to devastated towns and neighbourhoods yesterday, with many finding their homes destroyed or uninhabitable and hesitant to stay for fear a ceasefire between Hizbollah and Israel could unravel.
US President Donald Trump said yesterday that the US had banned Israel from further bombing in Lebanon, a day after he announced the 10-day ceasefire.
The agreement between Lebanon and Israel has added to optimism that the parallel war between the US and Iran could be nearing an end.
While Trump says Lebanon and Israel will work towards a longer-term deal, the ceasefire leaves big questions.
Notably, it does not demand Israel withdraw soldiers occupying parts of the south, where Israel’s defence minister said Israeli troops would continue to demolish homes he claimed were being used by Hizbollah.
Iran-backed Hizbollah, which operates independently of the Lebanese state, has said it maintains ‘the right to resist’.
Late yesterday, an Israeli strike killed at least one person in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said. The Israeli military said it was checking the report.
In the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, hills of rubble stood where there had once been apartment blocks and the smell of death hung in the air. Ali Hamza said he found his home intact, but that people were scared to return for now.
“It is impossible to live in these circumstances, and with these smells. A full return is difficult now, despite the hardship of displacement.” He had gathered school books from the house: “We lost everything; we don’t want them to lose the school year.”
In Qasmiyeh in southern Lebanon, cars were driving across a makeshift crossing over the Litani River, hastily erected after the ceasefire came into effect at midnight local time (2100 GMT). Israel destroyed all the bridges over the Litani during the war, blowing up the one at Qasmiyeh on Thursday.
Hizbollah expressed ‘cautious commitment’ to the ceasefire yesterday, but said it must ensure that all Israeli hostilities stop and limit the Israeli military’s ‘freedom of movement’ in Lebanon.
The group’s legislators also said the ceasefire ‘was primarily achieved due to Iranian pressure’.
Lebanon was dragged into war on March 2, when Hizbollah opened fire at Israel in support of Iran, sparking an Israeli offensive that authorities say has killed nearly 2,300 people and displaced 1.2 million, just 16 months after the last Hizbollah-Israel war.
Hizbollah fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel. Two Israeli civilians and 13 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the hostilities, Israel says.
Earlier, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said territory south of the Litani, which meets the Mediterranean 30km north of the Israeli border, had yet to be cleared of Hizbollah militants and arms.
“This will have to be done politically or through the continuation of the IDF’s military activity after the ceasefire ends,” he said.
Katz said Israeli forces would continue to hold seized territory, saying Israel had established a ‘security zone’ extending 10km into Lebanon.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, whose administration this week held Beirut’s highest-level contact with Israel in decades, said Lebanon faced ‘sensitive and pivotal’ negotiations with Israel.
He said his focus was to ensure the ceasefire stood, Israel withdrew, and prisoners were released.
The Lebanese government has sought Hizbollah’s peaceful disarmament for a year, and banned its military activities on March 2. Any move by the Lebanese state to disarm Hizbollah by force would risk conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990.
Israel’s main demand remained that Hizbollah must be dismantled, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
Trump said Lebanon on Thursday had agreed to ‘take care of Hizbollah’.
Israel ordered residents out of swathes of the south during the war.
“There’s destruction and it’s unliveable. Unliveable. We’re taking our things and leaving again,” said Fadel Badreddine, who was visiting the largely destroyed southern city of Nabatieh with his wife and son.
An Israeli military source said that “at this stage, Lebanese civilians are not yet permitted to return to southern Lebanon.”
The source said the military was prepared to defend Israeli communities from “forward defense positions within Lebanon”.
Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at the Chatham House policy institute in London, said it was likely there would be “a continuation of Israeli activity in southern Lebanon to bolster its objective of establishing a buffer zone”.
“Even if there are military infringements of the terms of the ceasefire, this will not necessarily mean abandoning the different stakeholders’ political commitment to the ceasefire terms,” she said.
The Lebanese army reported ceasefire violations by Israel, including intermittent shelling of several southern Lebanese villages, and urged citizens to hold off on returning to southern villages and towns.
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