15 reported killed in Lebanon as Israeli forces remain after withdrawal deadline – The National

Israeli forces in southern Lebanon opened fire on protesters demanding their withdrawal under a ceasefire agreement on Sunday, killing at least 15 and wounding more than 80, Lebanese health officials said.

Among the dead are two women and a soldier of the Lebanese army, the Ministry of Health announced. Wounded people are reported in more than a dozen villages in the border area.

Protesters, some carrying Hezbollah flags, tried to enter several villages to protest Israel’s failure to withdraw from southern Lebanon by the 60-day deadline stipulated in a ceasefire agreement that halted the war between Israel and Hezbollah in late November.

Israel said it had to stay longer because the Lebanese army had not been deployed to all areas of southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah did not re-establish its presence in the area. The Lebanese army said it could not deploy until Israeli forces withdrew.

The Israeli military blamed Hezbollah for fueling Sunday’s protests.

The statement said his troops fired warning shots to “eliminate threats in a number of areas identified as approaching suspects”. It added that several suspects who were close to Israeli soldiers had been arrested and were being interrogated.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement to the people of southern Lebanon on Sunday that “Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable and I am following this issue at the highest levels to ensure your rights and dignity.”

He urged them to exercise “self-restraint and trust in the Lebanese Armed Forces.” In a separate statement, the Lebanese army said it was escorting civilians to some towns in the border area and urged residents to follow military instructions to ensure their safety.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, whose Amal Movement party is allied with Hezbollah and served as a negotiator between the militant group and the US during ceasefire talks, said Sunday’s bloodshed was “a clear and urgent call to the international community to act immediately and force Israel to withdraw from the occupied Lebanese territories.”

The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, announced on X that Hezbollah had sent “rioters” and was “trying to inflame the situation to cover up its situation and status in Lebanon and the Arab world.”

He called on the residents of the border area on Sunday morning not to try to return to their villages.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the head of the UN peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro, called in a joint statement on both Israel and Lebanon to respect their obligations under the cease-fire agreement.

“The fact is that the deadlines stipulated in the Agreement from November have not been met,” the press release states. “As can be seen tragically this morning, the conditions for the safe return of citizens to their villages along the Blue Line have not yet been established.”

UNIFIL said further violence risks undermining the fragile security situation in the area and “prospects for stability introduced by the cessation of hostilities and the formation of a government in Lebanon”.

It called for the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, the removal of unauthorized weapons and property south of the Litani River, the redeployment of the Lebanese Army throughout southern Lebanon, and the safe and dignified return of displaced civilians on both sides of the Blue Bank. Line.

The AP team remained stranded overnight at a UNIFIL base near Mays al-Jabal after the Israeli military set up roadblocks on Saturday as they joined a peacekeeping patrol. Journalists reported hearing gunshots and thunder Sunday morning from the base, and peacekeepers said dozens of protesters had gathered nearby.

In the village of Aita al Shaab, families wandered through the flattened concrete structures looking for the remains of the homes they left behind. Israeli forces were not present.

“These are our houses,” said Hussein Bajouk, one of the returnees. “As much as they destroy, we will rebuild.”

Bajouk added that he is convinced that former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut in September, is indeed still alive.

“I don’t know how long we will wait, another month or two… but Sayyed will come out and speak,” he said, using an honorific title for Nasrallah.

Across the border in Kibbutz Manara, Orna Weinberg watched the devastation of the recent conflict on her neighbors and Lebanese villages across the border. The sound of gunfire was heard sporadically in the distance.

“Unfortunately, we have no way to defend our own children without hurting their children,” Weinberg, 58, said. “It’s a tragedy for all parties.”

Some 112,000 Lebanese remain displaced, out of more than a million who fled their homes during the war.

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