World

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire holds as displaced Lebanese start to return home

The truce aims to end 14 months of fighting between Israel and the militant group, while fighting rages on in Gaza.

Many displaced Lebanese are returning, despite warnings not to do so (AP)
Many displaced Lebanese are returning, despite warnings not to do so (AP) (Hassan Ammar/AP)
By Bassem Mroue, Kareem Chehayeb and Tia Goldenberg, AP

A ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah appears to be holding.

Residents in cars heaped with belongings are streaming back towards southern Lebanon, despite warnings from the Israeli and Lebanese militaries that they should stay away from certain areas.

If it holds, the ceasefire would bring an end to nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated in mid-September into all-out war and threatened to pull Hezbollah’s patron Iran and Israel into a broader regional conflagration. The deal does not address the war in Gaza.

It could offer a reprieve to the 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by the fighting and the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along the border with Lebanon.

The US- and France-brokered deal, approved by Israel late on Tuesday, calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border.

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Thousands of additional Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor compliance.

Israel says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah should it violate the terms of the deal. Israeli forces are still fighting Hamas militants in Gaza in response to the group’s cross-border raid into southern Israel in October 2023.

However, US President Joe Biden said his administration would make another push in the coming days to try to renew efforts for a deal in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.

Areas such as Dahiyeh, in Beirut, had been badly hit during the conflict (AP)
Areas such as Dahiyeh, in Beirut, had been badly hit during the conflict (AP) (Bilal Hussein/AP)

Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza rages on. The Gaza Health Ministry said 33 bodies had been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll in the nearly 14-month-long war to 44,282.

The Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says more than half of the dead are women and children.

The Israeli military said it struck dozens of Hamas sites in hard-hit northern Gaza, including weapons storage facilities and military structures.

It said it had warned civilians to evacuate the area beforehand. For weeks, the military has battled a resurgence of Hamas in the area, which was an early target of Israel’s offensive.

The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire has no direct bearing on the conflict in Gaza, where international mediators have struggled to secure a truce.