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Tens of thousands of Lebanese driven out by hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel set out on their way home on Wednesday, after the ceasefire came into force. The truce, which began at 4:00 a.m., puts an end to the conflict that began more than 13 months ago.
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November 27, 2024 – 4.35pm
(Keystone-ATS) Displaced residents of southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and Bekaa (east), Hezbollah strongholds, immediately took the road home. The southern suburbs of Beirut, still bombarded at dawn on Wednesday, are crisscrossed with Hezbollah supporters, brandishing the party’s yellow flag or portraits of their leader killed at the end of September by Israel, Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah is now preparing a “popular and official” funeral for this leader, said one of its officials. “This heroic suburb” has “conquered, we are proud,” Nizam Hamadé, an engineer, told AFP. Back in Nabatiyé, Ali Mazraani said he was “shocked by the massive destruction” of this town in southern Lebanon, which “now seems foreign”.
Also faced with “enormous destruction” in her village of Zebqine, Hawraa Beizh, a university professor, decided to resettle there. “This is our land,” she said.
Israeli military restrictions
The Israeli army warned residents in the region to stay away from its positions or from the communities it ordered to evacuate and reported several skirmishes.
She announced a restriction, overnight, of population movements in southern Lebanon. The population is, on the one hand, prohibited from moving towards the villages whose evacuation the Israeli army has ordered in the south and, on the other hand, from crossing the Litani River between 5:00 p.m. Wednesday and 7:00 a.m. Thursday.
The Lebanese army, for its part, “started to strengthen its presence” in the south of the country. “The army has begun to strengthen its presence in the South Litani River sector”, around thirty km from the Israeli border and “to strengthen the authority of the State in coordination with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL),” the army said in a statement.
Support for Hamas
Hezbollah opened a front “in support” of Hamas against Israel at the start of the war in Gaza, triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil.
After months of exchanges of fire, Israel launched massive bombings on the movement’s strongholds across Lebanon on September 23, before launching land operations in the south of the country, on its northern border, on September 30.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Israeli army has 60 days to gradually withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah must also withdraw from the country’s southern border with Israel and move north of the Litani River, around thirty from the border.
Israel’s security
According to Lebanese authorities, at least 3,823 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most since the end of September. On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians died in 13 months, according to the authorities.
According to US President Joe Biden, the agreement must prevent “what remains of Hezbollah” and other groups from “once again threatening the security of Israel”.
Washington and Paris, in the diplomatic maneuver, relied on resolution 1701 of the UN Security Council which ended the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, and stipulates that only the national army and the UNIFIL can be deployed in the border regions of southern Lebanon.
Israel reserves “total freedom of military action” in Lebanon, “if Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to rearm”, underlined its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hezbollah, whose leadership was largely decimated by Israeli strikes, did not react on Wednesday. The Shiite movement will demonstrate “total cooperation” for the deployment of the army in the south, said one of its deputies, Hassan Fadlallah.
“Pressure” on Hamas and Iran
According to Mr. Netanyahu, the truce will allow Israel to “focus on the Iranian threat” and “intensify” its pressure on Hamas.
Israel intends to “make all necessary efforts to create the conditions for a new exchange of hostages,” assured Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Sworn enemy of Israel, Iran welcomed “the cessation of Israeli aggression”, its embassy in Beirut congratulating “the Resistance” for its “glorious victory”. A Hamas official also welcomed a “major success for the resistance” and affirmed that his movement was also “ready for a ceasefire agreement” in Gaza.
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