Without waiting for the green light from the Lebanese army, thousands of inhabitants of southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa, in the east of the country, all strongholds of Hezbollah, also began to return. at home, AFP journalists noted.
In the southern suburbs of Beirut, still bombed at dawn on Wednesday, Hezbollah supporters rode on motorbikes, brandishing the party’s yellow flag, some chanting slogans in praise of their leader killed at the end of September by Israel, Hassan Nasrallah, in sound of celebratory gunfire.
“We are returning to this heroic suburb” which “overcame, we are proud,” Nizam Hamadé, an engineer who came to inspect his house, told AFP.
The southern highway was stormed by overloaded cars and vans, drivers honking and singing. “Our feeling is indescribable. Lebanon won, the State won, the people won,” says a father.
The Israeli army, however, warned residents of southern Lebanon not to approach the positions where it remains deployed – and said it fired on a vehicle doing so, forcing its occupants to turn back – or the villages it ordered evacuation.
The pro-Iranian movement 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 cross-border exchanges of fire, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign against Hezbollah on September 23 and deployed soldiers on the 30th in southern Lebanon, bordering northern Israel.
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“Focus on Iran”
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the duration of the ceasefire would depend “on what happens in Lebanon.” “We maintain complete freedom of military action” in Lebanon, he added: “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack.”
The Lebanese party, which let the head of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri negotiate on its behalf, has not, so far, commented on the agreement. It emerged considerably weakened from the conflict, its leadership largely decimated.
Binyamin Netanyahu argued that the truce will allow Israel to “focus on the Iranian threat,” and “intensify” its pressure on Palestinian Hamas.
Commitments about which Israeli editorialists expressed their doubts on Wednesday: “Netanyahu suggested that we start to believe him”, but “why didn’t he do in Gaza what he did in Lebanon”, and “ can we not stop the war in Gaza to bring back the hostages,” asked the major center daily Yediot Aharonot.
“The announcement of the ceasefire in Lebanon is a victory and a major success for the resistance,” a member of the Hamas political bureau told AFP on Wednesday, affirming that his movement was also “ ready” for a truce in the Gaza Strip.
The Houthi rebels of Yemen, also supported by Tehran like Hezbollah, Hamas and other armed groups in the region, for their part welcomed a “victory” for Hezbollah.
Israel’s sworn enemy, Iran “firmly supports the Lebanese government, the nation and the resistance”, said Iranian diplomatic spokesperson Esmaïl Baghaï in Tehran.
At the same time, the Israeli army continues its strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, where at least 22 people were killed on Tuesday, according to Civil Defense, and where thousands of displaced people are trying to protect themselves from the rain and the cold.
The war was sparked by the Hamas attack, which led to the death of 1,207 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data, including hostages killed or died in captivity.
