Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon, but tense cease-fire holds
TYRE, Lebanon — Israeli jets Sunday launched an airstrike over a southern Lebanese border village, while troops shelled other border towns and villages still under Israeli control, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.
The attacks come days after a U.S.-brokered cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike in the village of Yaroun, nor did the Hezbollah militant group. Israel continues to call on displaced Lebanese not to return to dozens of southern villages in this stage of the cease-fire. It also continues to impose a daily curfew for people moving across the Litani River between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the Lebanese military have been critical of Israeli strikes and overflights since the cease-fire went into effect, accusing Israel of violating the agreement. The military said it had filed complaints, but no clear military action has been taken by Hezbollah in response, meaning that the tense cessation of hostilities has not yet broken down.
When Israel has issued statements about these strikes, it says they were done to thwart possible Hezbollah attacks.
The Israeli military says its warplanes have fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility.
The United States military announced Friday that Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers alongside senior U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein will co-chair a new U.S.-led monitoring committee that includes France, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL, Lebanon, and Israel. Hochstein led over a year of shuttle diplomacy to broker the cease-fire deal, and his role will be temporary until a permanent civilian co-chair is appointed.
Lebanon, meanwhile, is trying to pick up the pieces and return to some level of normal life after the war that decimated large swaths of its south and east, displacing an estimated 1.2 million people. The Lebanese military said it detonated unexploded munitions left over from Israeli strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon. Elsewhere, the Lebanese Civil Defense said it removed five bodies from under the rubble in two southern Lebanese towns over the past 24 hours.
The first phase of the cease-fire is a 60-day cessation of hostilities where Hezbollah militants are supposed to withdraw from southern Lebanon north of the Litani River and Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. Lebanese troops are to deploy in large numbers in the south, effectively being the only armed force in control of the south alongside UNIFIL peacekeepers.
But challenges remain. Many families who want to bury their dead in southern Lebanon are unable to do so.
Israel launches waves of airstrikes across Lebanon and Gaza, killing at least 45 people in Lebanon’s northeast; the toll from central Gaza attacks rose to 25.
The Lebanese Health Ministry and military allocated a plot of land in the coastal city of Tyre for those people to be temporarily laid to rest. Dr. Wissam Ghazal of the Health Ministry in Tyre said almost 200 bodies have been temporarily buried in that plot of land, until the situation near the border calms down.
“Until now, we haven’t been able to go to our village, and our hearts are burning because our martyrs are buried in this manner,” said Om Ali, who asked to be called by a nickname that means “Ali’s mother” in Arabic. Her husband was a combatant killed in the war from the border town of Aita el-Shaab, just a stone’s throw from the tense border.
“We hope the crisis ends soon so we can go and bury them properly as soon as possible, because truly, leaving the entrusted ones buried in a non-permanent place like this is very difficult,” she said.
In the meantime, cash-strapped Lebanon is trying to raise as much money as it can to help rebuild the country — the war cost some $8.5 billion in damages and losses, according to the World Bank — and to help recruit and train troops to deploy 10,000 personnel into southern Lebanon. Speaker Nabih Berri also called for parliament to convene to elect a president next month to break a gridlock of over two years and reactivate the country’s crippled state institutions.
Chehayeb and Tawil write for the Associated Press. Chehayeb reported from Beirut.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
