Israel’s military has set up roadblocks across border towns and roads in a strategic valley in southern Lebanon, a day before the deadline for it to withdraw from the area under an agreement that halted its war with the Hezbollah militant group.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, confirmed that it will not complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon by Sunday as outlined in the ceasefire agreement.
The deal that went into effect in late November gave both sides 60 days to remove their forces from southern Lebanon and for the Lebanese army to move in and secure the area, along with UN peacekeepers.
Israel says Hezbollah and the Lebanese army have not met their obligations, while Lebanon accuses the Israeli army of hindering the Lebanese military from taking over.
The Israeli military said the agreement is progressing. But it said in some sectors, “it has been delayed and will take slightly longer”.
The Lebanese military has said that they had deployed in areas following Israeli troops’ withdrawal, and in a statement on Saturday accused the Israeli military of “procrastinating” in their withdrawal from other areas.
Washington appears to support an extension of this withdrawal phase.
While Lebanese army soldiers are dispersed across the south’s western sector, Israeli troops remained in control of most of the south-eastern sector.
Members of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (Unifil) said Israeli tanks and bulldozers have unexpectedly moved and set up several roadblocks, apparently in an attempt to prevent displaced Lebanese people trying to return to their villages.
In Mays al-Jabal, peacekeepers from a Nepalese battalion watched in their position along the UN-mandated Blue Line as an Israeli jet flew overhead following the sound of what they said was an Israeli controlled demolition of a building.
There are no residents left in that town and the vast majority of the buildings seen by Associated Press journalists were reduced to rubble or pancaked after intense Israeli shelling and air strikes, following by clashes during its ground invasion.
The few that stood had their walls blown out and are badly damaged. The piles of rubble and debris on the road make it impossible for civilian cars to enter the town that once was home to a few thousand people.
The scene is similar in neighbouring towns, including Blida and Aitaroun, where almost all the structures have collapsed into mounds of rubble and no residents have returned.
The peacekeepers tried to appeal for permission to move across the roadblocks, but were not authorised to do so. An AP crew that had joined Unifil on patrol was stranded as a result.
“There is still a lot of IDF (Israeli army) activity going on in the area,” said Maj Dinesh Bhandari of Unifil’s Nepalese battalion in Mays al-Jabal overlooking the Blue Line.
“We are waiting for the deconfliction and then we will support to deploy the LAF (Lebanese army) in that position.”
When asked about weapons belonging to Hezbollah, Maj Bhandari said they had found caches of weapons, munitions and mines in some structures during their patrols.
Israel says it has been taking down the remaining infrastructure left by the Hezbollah militant group, which has a strong military and political presence in the south. Israel since its ground incursion into Lebanon said it also targeted a tunnel network, and has conducted large-scale demolition of buildings in a handful of border towns.
Lebanese officials have complained that the Israeli military is also destroying civilian homes and infrastructure.
In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun pointed to the “destruction of villages adjacent to the southern border and the bulldozing of lands, which will hinder the return of residents to their areas”, according to the state-run National News Agency.
France, along with the US, is a guarantor of the ceasefire deal.
Some 112,000 Lebanese remain displaced, out of more than one million displaced during the war. Large swathes of southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs were destroyed in Israeli bombardments.
