DEIR MIMAS, Lebanon: Israeli forces withdrew Tuesday from border villages in southern Lebanon under a deadline spelled out in a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, but stayed put in five strategic overlook locations inside Lebanon.
Top Lebanese leaders denounced the continued presence of the Israel troops as an occupation and a violation of the deal, maintaining that Israel was required to make a full withdrawal by Tuesday. The troops’ presence is also a sore point with the militant Hezbollah group, which has demanded action from the authorities.
Lebanese soldiers moved into the areas from where the Israeli troops pulled out and began clearing roadblocks set up by Israeli forces and checking for unexploded ordnance. They blocked the main road leading to the villages, preventing anyone from entering while the military was looking for any explosives left behind.
Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in. Elsewhere, the army allowed the residents to enter.
Many of their houses were demolished during the more than year-long conflict or in the two months after November’s ceasefire agreement, when Israeli forces were still occupying the area.
In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out.
“What I’m seeing is beyond belief. I am in a state of shock,” said Khodo Suleiman, a construction contractor, pointing to his destroyed home on a hilltop.
“There are no homes, no plants, nothing left,” said Suleiman, who had last been in Kfar Kila six months ago. “I am feeling a mixture of happiness and pain.”
In the main village square, Lebanese troops deployed as a military bulldozer removed rubble from the street.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli army “will stay in a buffer zone in Lebanon in five control posts” to guard against any ceasefire violations by Hezbollah. He also said the army had erected new posts on the Israeli side of the border and sent reinforcements there.
“We are determined to provide full security to every northern community,” Katz said.
However, Lebanon’s three top officials — the country’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker — in a joint statement said that Israel’s continued presence at the five locaions was in violation of the ceasefire agreement. They called on the UN Security Council to take action to force a complete Israeli withdrawal.
“The continued Israeli presence in any inch of Lebanese territory is an occupation, with all the legal consequences that result from that according to international legitimacy,” the statement said.
The Israeli troop presence was also criticized in a joint statement by the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the UN peacekeeping force in the country, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro.
The two, however, warned that this should not “overshadow the tangible progress that has been made” since the ceasefire agreement.
Near the Lebanese villages of Deir Mimas and Kfar Kila, hundreds of villagers were gathered early on Tuesday morning as an Israeli drone flew overhead.
Atef Arabi, who had been waiting with his wife and two daughters before sunrise, was eager to see what’s left of his home in Kfar Kila.
“I am very happy I am going back even if I find my home destroyed,” said the 36-year-old car mechanic. “If I find my house destroyed I will rebuild it.”
Later on Tuesday, Kfar Kila’s mayor Hassan Sheet told The Associated Press that 90 percent of the village homes are completely destroyed while the remaining 10 percent are damaged. “There are no homes nor buildings standing,” he said, adding that rebuilding will start from scratch.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war last September.
More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million were displaced at the height of the conflict, more than 100,000 of whom have not been able to return home. On the Israeli side, dozens of people were killed and some 60,000 are displaced.
Hussein Fares left Kfar Kila in October 2023 for the southern city of Nabatiyeh. When the fighting intensified in September he moved with his family to the city of Sidon where they were given a room in a school housing displaced people.
Kfar Kila saw intense fighting and Israeli troops later detonated many of its homes.
“I have been waiting for a year and the half to return,” said Fares who has a pickup truck and works as a laborer. He said he understands that the reconstruction process will take time.
“I have been counting the seconds for this day,” he said.
Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal
https://arab.news/pseby
Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal
- Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in
- In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out
US strike on Yemen fuel port kills at least 58, Houthi media say
- The US has vowed not to halt the large-scale strikes begun last month, unless the Houthis cease attacks on Red Sea shipping
WASHINGTON: US strikes on a fuel port in Yemen killed at least 58 people, Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said, one of the deadliest since the United States began its attacks on the Iran-backed militants.
The United States has vowed not to halt the large-scale strikes begun last month in its biggest military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January, unless the Houthis cease attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Al Masirah TV said 126 people were also wounded in Thursday’s strikes on the western fuel port of Ras Isa, which the US military said aimed to cut off a source of fuel for the Houthi militant group.
Responding to a Reuters query for comment on the Houthis’ casualty figure and its own estimate, the US Central Command said it had none beyond the initial announcement of the attacks.
“The objective of these strikes was to degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis, who continue to exploit and bring great pain upon their fellow countrymen,” it had said in a post on X.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of drone and missile attacks on vessels transiting the waterway, saying they were targeting ships linked to Israel in protest over the war in Gaza.
They halted attacks on shipping lanes during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza. Although they vowed to resume strikes after Israel renewed its assault on Gaza last month, they have not claimed any since.
In March, two days of US attacks killed more than 50 people, Houthi officials said.
Lebanon says one killed in a renewed Israeli strike near Sidon
- Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon
Beirut: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on Friday hit a vehicle near the southern coastal city of Sidon, killing one person.
Despite a November 27 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of conflict — including two months of all-out war — between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon.
“The attack carried out by the Israeli enemy against a car on the Sidon-Ghaziyeh road resulted in one dead,” said a health ministry statement on the fourth consecutive day of Israeli attacks on the south where Israel says it has targeted Hezbollah militants.
An AFP journalist said the Israeli attack hit a four-wheel-drive vehicle, sending a pillar of black smoke into the sky.
The Lebanese army sealed off the area as firemen fought the blaze.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the strike, but the Israeli military has said it was behind previous attacks this week that it said killed members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
Hezbollah, significantly weakened by the war, insists it is adhering to the November ceasefire, even as Israeli attacks persist.
Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strikes
- On Thursday the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Friday that 15 people, including 10 from the same family, had been killed in two overnight Israeli strikes.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said on Telegram that “our crews recovered the bodies of 10 martyrs and a large number of wounded from the house of the Baraka family and the neighboring houses targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Bani Suhaila area east of Khan Yunis,” in the southern Gaza Strip.
Bassal later announced that a separate strike hit two houses in northern Gaza’s Tal Al-Zaatar, where crews had “recovered the bodies of five people.”
Israeli strikes hit dozens of targets in Gaza
Israeli airstrikes hit around 40 targets across the Gaza Strip over the past day, the military said on Friday, hours after Hamas rejected an Israeli ceasefire offer that it said fell short of its demand to agree a full end to the war.
Last month, the Israeli military broke off a two-month truce that had largely halted fighting in Gaza and has since pushed in from the north and south, seizing almost a third of the enclave as it seeks to pressure Hamas into agreeing to release hostages and disarm.
The military said troops were operating in the Shabura and Tel Al-Sultan areas near the southern city of Rafah, as well as in northern Gaza, where it has taken control of large areas east of Gaza City.
Egyptian mediators have been trying to revive the January ceasefire deal, which broke down when Israel resumed airstrikes and sent ground troops back into Gaza, but there has been little sign that the two sides have moved closer on fundamental issues.
Late on Thursday, Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
But he dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. The ceasefire offer it made through Egyptian mediators includes talks on a final settlement to the war but no firm agreement.
Defense Minister Israel Katz also said this week that troops would remain in the buffer zone around the border that now extends deep into Gaza and cuts the enclave in two, even after any settlement.
Israeli military intercepts missile launched from Yemen
- Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Friday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, from where the Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” Israel’s army said on Telegram, adding that aerial defense systems had been deployed “to intercept the threat.”
Cash crunch leaves Syrians queueing for hours to collect salaries
- Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception
- The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet
DAMASCUS: Seated on the pavement outside a bank in central Damascus, Abu Fares’s face is worn with exhaustion as he waits to collect a small portion of his pension.
“I’ve been here for four hours and I haven’t so much as touched my pension,” said the 77-year-old, who did not wish to give his full name.
“The cash dispensers are under-stocked and the queues are long,” he continued.
Since the overthrow of president Bashar Assad last December, Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception.
Decades of punishing sanctions imposed on the Assad dynasty – which the new authorities are seeking to have lifted – have left about 90 percent of Syrians under the poverty line, according to the United Nations.
The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet.
Prior to his ousting, Assad’s key ally Russia held a monopoly on printing banknotes. The new authorities have only announced once that they have received a shipment of banknotes from Moscow since Assad’s overthrow.
In a country with about 1.25 million public sector employees, civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs to make withdrawals, capped at about 200,000 Syrian pounds, the equivalent on the black market of $20 per day.
In some cases, they have to take a day off just to wait for the cash.
“There are sick people, elderly... we can’t continue like this,” said Abu Fares.
“There is a clear lack of cash, and for that reason we deactivate the ATMs at the end of the workday,” an employee at a private bank said, preferring not to give her name.
A haphazard queue of about 300 people stretches outside the Commercial Bank of Syria. Some are sitting on the ground.
Afraa Jumaa, a civil servant, said she spends most of the money she withdraws on the travel fare to get to and from the bank.
“The conditions are difficult and we need to withdraw our salaries as quickly as possible,” said the 43-year-old.
“It’s not acceptable that we have to spend days to withdraw meagre sums.”
The local currency has plunged in value since the civil war erupted in 2011, prior to which the dollar was valued at 50 pounds.
Economist Georges Khouzam explained that foreign exchange vendors – whose work was outlawed under Assad – “deliberately reduced cash flows in Syrian pounds to provoke rapid fluctuations in the market and turn a profit.”
Muntaha Abbas, a 37-year-old civil servant, had to return three times to withdraw her entire salary of 500,000 pounds.
“There are a lot of ATMs in Damascus, but very few of them work,” she said.
After a five-hour wait, she was finally able to withdraw 200,000 pounds.
“Queues and more queues... our lives have become a series of queues,” she lamented.
