Israeli forces killed 22 people in south Lebanon yesterday as a deadline for their withdrawal passed and thousands of people tried to return to their homes in defiance of Israeli military orders, Lebanese authorities said.
Israel said on Friday it would keep troops in the south beyond the deadline set out in a US-brokered ceasefire that halted last year’s war with Hizbollah, saying Lebanon had not yet fully enforced terms requiring south Lebanon to be free of Hizbollah arms and the Lebanese army to be deployed.
Lebanon’s US-backed military, which reported one of its soldiers among those killed by Israeli forces yesterday, has accused Israel of procrastinating in its withdrawal.
The Hizbollah-Israel conflict was fought in parallel with the Gaza war, and peaked in a major Israeli offensive that uprooted more than a million people in Lebanon and left the Iran-backed group badly weakened.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 22 people were killed and another 124 wounded in numerous locations in the south, as a result of what it described as Israeli attacks on citizens while they were trying to enter their still-occupied towns.
The Israeli military said that its troops “operating in southern Lebanon fired warning shots to remove threats in a number of areas where suspects were identified approaching the troops”. It also said “a number of suspects ... that posed an imminent threat” were apprehended.
Hizbollah’s Al Manar television, broadcasting from several locations in the south, showed footage of residents moving towards villages yesterday, some holding the group’s flag and images of Hizbollah fighters killed in the war.
An Israeli military spokesperson, addressing the people of south Lebanon in a post on X, accused Hizbollah of trying to “heat up the situation” and said the Israeli army would “in the near future” inform them of places to which they can return.
Hizbollah has put the onus on the Lebanese state to ensure Israel’s withdrawal.
Hizbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah said Lebanon is committed to the ceasefire deal but that Israel had turned against it with US support. The White House said on Friday that a short, temporary ceasefire extension was urgently needed.
A top UN official in Lebanon and the head of the UN peacekeepers in the south said conditions were “not yet in place” for the safe return of Lebanese citizens to villages near the border. “The fact is that the timelines envisaged” in the ceasefire “have not been met”, they said in a statement.
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