The IDF announced Thursday that it had carried out an airstrike against a Hezbollah installation in southern Lebanon, the first since the start, the day before, of a still fragile truce. According to the Lebanese army, Israel has repeatedly violated the ceasefire.
The Lebanese army has begun to deploy troops and armor in southern Lebanon, as planned by the ceasefire agreement which ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and of which it must ensure the delicate application.
As soon as it came into force on Wednesday at 3:00 a.m. Swiss, tens of thousands of displaced residents rushed to return to their homes in the south, the southern suburbs of Beirut and eastern Lebanon, Hezbollah strongholds.
The Israeli army, however, imposed a curfew between 5:00 p.m. Thursday and 12:70 a.m. Friday in southern Lebanon, after saying it had “opened fire” towards “suspects (…) not respecting the conditions of the ceasefire.” fire”.
On Thursday, 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 said 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 an airstrike.
She added that her forces “remained in southern Lebanon and acted to enforce” the truce.
Israeli fire also injured two people in the village of Markaba, in southern Lebanon, according to the official Lebanese news agency Ani.
The Lebanese army sets up
Meanwhile, the Lebanese army continues its deployment in southern Lebanon in the border regions, “carries out patrols and installs checkpoints”, a military source told AFP on Thursday, specifying that the soldiers “are not “not advance in areas where the Israeli army is still present.”
In the Christian village of Qlaaya, Lebanese soldiers were greeted Wednesday evening by jubilant residents who threw them flowers and rice.
“We only want the Lebanese army in Lebanon,” chanted the crowd.
Parliament on Thursday extended by one year the mandate of army commander-in-chief Joseph Aoun, who was due to retire in January.
“Ready to face” Israel
The ceasefire agreement aims to put an end to the deadly conflict that began in October 2023 between Israel and Hezbollah, an armed movement allied with Iran, which displaced 900,000 people in Lebanon and 60,000 in the north. of Israel.
Hezbollah opened a “support” front for Hamas against Israel at the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement.
After months of exchanges of fire on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign on the strongholds of the Lebanese movement on September 23, followed by ground operations in southern Lebanon, claiming to want to secure its northern border and allow the return of displaced people.
According to Lebanese authorities, at least 3,961 people have been killed 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.
Sponsored by the United States and France, the ceasefire agreement provides for the withdrawal within 60 days of the Israeli army from Lebanon.
Hezbollah must also retreat to the north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
These provisions are based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
The agreement includes American and French technical support for the Lebanese army, whose mission promises to be difficult.
Israel said it reserves “complete freedom of military action” in Lebanon, “if Hezbollah violates the agreement and attempts to rearm.”
Hezbollah proclaimed its “victory” on Wednesday, affirming that its fighters “will remain fully ready to face (…) the attacks of the Israeli enemy”. Although decapitated by Israeli strikes, the Shiite movement remains a key player in Lebanon.
Hezbollah “cannot transform itself into a purely political party, because all of its legitimacy and influence are rooted in its role as an armed resistance movement,” judges Imad Salamey, who heads the department of international and political studies at the Lebanese American University (LAU). But he could show “more flexibility”.
The movement could thus unblock the election of a president of which Lebanon has been deprived for more than two years due to political rivalries. Parliament decided on Thursday to meet on January 9 for this election, according to Ani.
Life is slowly returning
Residents of the south continued Thursday in an incessant flow to return to their devastated towns and villages.
In the port city of Tyre, fishermen were waiting for a green light from the army to return to sea.
“When there was an escalation, we stopped working completely and were threatened by the Israelis,” explained one of them, Madhi Istanbuli.
In the southern suburbs of Beirut, Ali Mohammad Abbas came to pay his respects at his brother’s grave, in a cemetery devastated by Israeli bombs. “I was waiting for the ceasefire,” said this resident of the Bekaa, in the east, who was unable to come to the funeral “because the roads were not safe.”
A little further away, Ahmad Aki Mansour is delighted with the resumption of business in his itinerant vegetable business. Especially since we will have to rebuild: “the houses of my three sons have been destroyed,” he says.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
