Israeli forces in southern Lebanon opened fire on protesters demanding their withdrawal in accordance with a ceasefire agreement on Sunday, killing at least 15 and injuring more than 80, Lebanese health officials reported.
The dead included two women and a Lebanese army soldier, the Health Ministry said in a statement. People were injured in more than a dozen villages in the border area.
Protesters, some carrying Hezbollah flags, attempted to enter several villages to protest Israel’s failure to withdraw from southern Lebanon by the 60-day deadline stipulated in a ceasefire agreement which interrupted the Israel-Hezbollah war at the end of November.
Israel said it had to stay longer because the Lebanese army has not moved to all areas of southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah does not re-establish its presence in the region. The Lebanese army said it could not deploy until Israeli forces withdrew.
The Israeli military blamed Hezbollah for sparking Sunday’s protests.
He said in a statement that his troops fired warning shots to “remove threats in a number of areas where suspects have been identified approaching.” He added that a number of suspects near Israeli troops were apprehended and questioned.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement attacking residents of southern Lebanon on Sunday that “Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable, and I am following this issue at the highest level.” level to ensure your rights and dignity.”
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He urged them to “exercise self-restraint and trust the Lebanese armed forces.” The Lebanese army, in a separate statement, said it was escorting civilians in some towns in the border area and called on residents to follow military instructions to ensure their safety.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, whose Amal Movement party is allied with Hezbollah and who served as an interlocutor between the militant group and the United States during ceasefire negotiations, said the outpouring Sunday’s bloodletting “is a clear and urgent call for the international community to act immediately and compel and compel Israel to withdraw from the occupied Lebanese territories.” »
An Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, posted on “.
He called on Sunday morning for residents of the border area not to try to return to their villages.
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the head of the UN Peacekeeping Force mission known as Unifil, Lieutenant General Aroldo Lázaro, called for a joint statement for Israel and Lebanon to comply with their obligations under the surrender agreement.
“The fact is that the deadlines envisaged in the November understanding have not been respected,” the statement said. “As we saw tragically this morning, the conditions are not yet in place for the safe return of citizens to their villages along the blue line.”
UniFil said further risks of violence undermine the fragile security situation in the region and “the prospects for stability have been ushered in by the cessation of hostilities and the formation of a government in Lebanon.”
He called for the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, the removal of unauthorized weapons and assets south of the Litani River, the redeployment of the Lebanese army throughout southern Lebanon and ensuring the safe and dignified return of civilians moved to both sides of the blue of the blue of the blue and worthily Doubling.
An AP team was stranded overnight at a Unifil base near Mays Al-Jabal after the Israeli army set up roadblocks on Saturday as they joined a patrol by peacekeepers. Reporters said they heard gunshots and booming sounds Sunday morning from the base, and peacekeepers said dozens of protesters had gathered nearby.
In the village of Aita Al Shaab, families wandered over flattened concrete structures looking for remnants of the homes they left behind. No Israeli forces were present.
“These are our homes,” said Hussein Bajouk, one of the returning residents. “Though they destroy, we will rebuild.”
Bajouk added that he is convinced that former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs in September, is really still alive.
“I don’t know how long we will wait, a month or two months… but the Sayyed will come out and speak,” he said, using an honorific for Nasrallah.
Across the border in Kibbutz Manara, Orna Weinberg studied the devastation of the recent conflict on her neighbors and Lebanese villages across the border. The sound of gunfire sporadically appeared in the distance.
“Unfortunately, we have no way to defend our own children without harming their children,” said Weinberg, 58. “It’s a tragedy on all sides.”
Some 112,000 Lebanese remain displaced, out of more than a million people who fled their homes during the war.
& Copy 2025 The Canadian Press
