Lebanon cease-fire appears to hold despite Israeli strike

TEL AVIV, Israel — The uneasy truce between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah largely held through its second day in Lebanon on Thursday, although Israel conducted an airstrike that it said targeted militants violating terms of the ceasefire deal.

The Israeli strike was the first of its kind since the U.S.-backed ceasefire went into effect before dawn Wednesday. But despite an exchange of blame between two parties of the deal — Israel and Lebanon — neither of the war’s combatants, Israel or Hezbollah, seemed keen to immediately return to full-scale fighting.

The Israeli military said its airstrike, near the border in southern Lebanon, had targeted two militants arriving at a Hezbollah rocket facility that had been used to fire into Israel. Lebanon’s army, which is set to play a major role in enforcing the truce, accused Israel of violating the ceasefire “several times” on Thursday afternoon. Hezbollah did not immediately comment.

The Israeli military also said its soldiers had stopped militants from advancing into southern Lebanon. “With the same power we used to secure the agreement, we will now enforce it no less so,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the military’s chief of staff, said in a video statement Thursday. He added that Israel would respond to any deviations from the agreement “with fire.”

But after months of fighter jets and rockets in the skies and explosions erupting on the ground, quiet reigned over much of Lebanon and northern Israel on Thursday.

Israeli communities near the border passed a second consecutive day without sirens warning of incoming rockets. And in Lebanon, displaced people began heading home to Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah holds sway and which Israel bombarded heavily in recent months.

Although Hezbollah was badly battered by Israel’s campaign, the group’s supporters and political officials have tried to strike a defiant tone. A Hezbollah lawmaker in Lebanon’s Parliament, Hassan Fadlallah, told reporters on Thursday that the group would defend itself if Israel attacked. But he also said that it was still abiding by the agreement.

The war forced more than 1 million people in Lebanon — about one-quarter of the country’s population — to flee their homes, and thousands have been moving back toward their war-ravaged communities since the ceasefire took effect.

But it is still far from clear when hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese will be able to return to their homes in the country’s south, parts of which are still occupied by Israeli forces. According to the ceasefire agreement, Israeli forces will gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon over the next 60 days.

In the meantime, the Israeli military has warned displaced Lebanese to stay away from much of southern Lebanon and imposed an overnight curfew across the area.

Lebanon’s army said Thursday that it had moved troops into Hezbollah’s strongholds outside Beirut and in the country’s south and east, in accordance with the ceasefire. The Lebanese Parliament also extended the term of Joseph Aoun, the military’s top commander, for another year.

The Lebanese army also said it was operating “temporary checkpoints,” detonating unexploded ordnance and working to open roads that had been closed or damaged during the fighting. It said its goal was to help displaced people return to their homes.

One of those who went back home was Taflah Amar, 79. She returned to Baalbek, in Lebanon’s northeast, on Thursday after two months in Beirut. She said she had “been crying all day.”

“I’m an old woman,” said Amar, who returned home to find much of her neighborhood destroyed. “I’m not affiliated with anyone. What did I do to deserve this?”

Some of the most heavily damaged communities in Lebanon are the towns along its border with Israel. For years they were effectively governed by Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.

Beginning in October 2023, the group used those towns to launch near-daily rocket attacks on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas, its Iran-backed ally in the Gaza Strip. The attacks forced tens of thousands in Israel to flee their homes. But few in Israel, where the government has provided assistance to people who fled the conflict, appeared eager to rush back when the truce began.

“We have no intention of going back home yet,” said Gal Avraham, 29, a dog trainer from Margaliot, a small village in Israel just 200 yards from the border. Avraham and her husband took advantage of the ceasefire to visit their home for the first time in over a year. The house, which they had abandoned in haste, reeked of rotted food left behind after the electricity failed, she said.

Several homes in the village were damaged and many henhouses were destroyed. Avraham expressed doubts that the ceasefire would hold, citing a siren that sounded overnight in a nearby border town as a reminder of the lingering instability. “As far as we know, no one is returning home,” she said.

Israel intensified its military response to Hezbollah’s attacks in mid-September and began a ground invasion on Oct. 1. The war killed about 3,800 Lebanese and 100 Israelis, according to their governments.

Under the ceasefire agreement, both Israel and Hezbollah will observe a 60-day truce. During that time, Israel will gradually withdraw its military from Lebanon, Hezbollah will move its fighters out of southern Lebanon and the Lebanese army will move in, helping enforce a de facto buffer zone between Israel’s border and the Litani River.

The area will also be policed by a U.N. peacekeeping force; it and Lebanon’s military were not combatants in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The deal was mediated by the United States and France, and formally accepted by the governments of Israel and Lebanon.

But the timeline for complete implementation of the agreement remains uncertain. Israel has said its actions will depend on how events unfold in Lebanon. A similar ceasefire that ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 was never fully enforced.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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