A ceasefire between Israel and Hizbollah held yesterday after the two sides struck a deal brokered by the US and France, but Israel warned local residents not to return to the border area yet or approach its troops.
The agreement, a rare diplomatic feat in a region rocked by conflict for months, ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the group in years, but Israel is still fighting its other arch foe, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.
Lebanon’s army, entrusted with ensuring the ceasefire lasts, said it had begun deploying additional troops south of the Litani, into a region heavily bombarded by Israel in its battle against Hizbollah. The river runs about 30km north of Israel’s border.
Israel’s attacks have also struck eastern cities and towns and Hizbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, and Israeli troops have pushed around 6km into Lebanon in a series of ground incursions launched in September.
Cars and vans piled high with mattresses, suitcases and even furniture streamed through the heavily bombed southern port city of Tyre heading south, where hundreds of thousands of people had been forced to flee their homes by the violence.
Displaced Lebanese Zahi Hijazi, 67, took advantage of the truce to visit his damaged apartment in Beirut’s southern suburbs, saying war had wrecked the building for a second time.
“Israel hit this building in 1982, it was all demolished. After 13 years of displacement, we returned and rebuilt it,” he said, surveying broken glass and broken furniture.
“Our lifetime’s savings ... All this destruction,” he said.
In the heart of heavily bombarded southern suburb of Beirut, 25-year-old Rayane Salman stood looking at a pile of rubble that she once called home.
“My family spent their lifetime building this. We lived here for 25 years and now it is all gone”.
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