The Israeli army announced Thursday that it had carried out an airstrike against a Hezbollah installation in southern Lebanon, the day after a truce with the Lebanese Islamist movement came into force.
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A fighter plane targeted “a forest area not accessible to civilians” in the town of Baïssariyé, Nazih Eid, the mayor of this Lebanese town, told AFP.
The Israeli army indicated around 3:30 p.m. that it had “identified terrorist activity” in “a facility used according to it by Hezbollah to store medium-range rockets in southern Lebanon”, and to have “thwarted the threat” with a Air Force plane.
The Israeli army added in its statement that its forces “remain in southern Lebanon and act to enforce” the truce agreement.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect early Wednesday in Lebanon, after more than a year of cross-border hostilities and two months of open warfare between the Israeli army and the Lebanese armed movement backed by Iran.
The truce, valid since 4 a.m. Wednesday, is intended to interrupt the conflict which has forced tens of thousands of people in Israel and hundreds of thousands of others in Lebanon to flee their homes.
Thursday noon, the Israeli army reported a previous incident and announced that it had “opened fire” towards “suspects (..) arriving with vehicles in a certain number of areas of southern Lebanon, not respecting the conditions of the ceasefire.
According to official Lebanese media, two people were injured Thursday in Israeli fire on a border village in southern Lebanon, where the Lebanese army continues its deployment without approaching areas where the Israeli army is still present and where it has imposed a nighttime curfew for the night from Thursday to Friday.
Under the agreement sponsored by the United States and France, the Israeli army has 60 days to gradually withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah must also retreat to the north of the Litani River, around thirty kilometers from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
