[🇱🇧] Monitoring Israel and Lebanon War

[Saif]

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire holds in first hours, Lebanese civilians return to south

A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah held on Wednesday after both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the US and France, a rare victory for diplomacy in the Middle East wracked by two wars for over a year. Lebanon's army, tasked with ensuring the ceasefire lasts, said

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire holds in first hours, Lebanese civilians return to south
REUTERS
Published :
Nov 27, 2024 17:50
Updated :
Nov 27, 2024 18:29

A man waves a Lebanese flag as he stands amidst the rubble of a building destroyed in Israeli strikes, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah took effect at 0200 GMT on Wednesday after US President Joe Biden said both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the United States and France, in Tyre, Lebanon, November 27, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah held on Wednesday after both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the US and France, a rare victory for diplomacy in the Middle East wracked by two wars for over a year.

Lebanon's army, tasked with ensuring the ceasefire lasts, said it was preparing to deploy to the south of the country, a region Israel heavily bombarded in its battle against the Iran-backed militant group, along with eastern cities and towns and Hezbollah strongholds in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The military asked that residents of border villages delay returning home until the Israeli military, which has waged war against Hezbollah on several occasions and pushed around 6 km (4 miles) into Lebanon, withdraws.

Israel said it identified Hezbollah operatives returning to areas near the border and had opened fire to prevent them from coming closer. There were no signs that the incident would undermine the ceasefire.

The agreement, which promises to end a conflict across the Israeli-Lebanese border that has killed thousands of people since it was ignited by the Gaza war last year, is a major achievement for the US in the waning days of President Joe Biden's administration.

The deal is likely to enable Israel to focus more closely on the conflict in shattered Gaza, where it has vowed to destroy its long-time enemy the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which led the Oct 7, 2023, attacks on Israeli communities.

"Force must give way to dialogue and negotiation. This has now been achieved in Lebanon, and it must happen as soon as possible in the Gaza Strip," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Info radio.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the group "appreciates" Lebanon's right to reach an agreement which protects its people, and hopes for a deal to end the Gaza war.

Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati appealed to Israel to fully commit and "withdraw from all the regions and positions it occupied", hours after the truce between Israel and Hezbollah was activated.

Cars and vans piled high with mattresses, suitcases and even furniture streamed through the southern port city of Tyre, which was heavily bombed in the final days before the ceasefire, heading south. Fighting had escalated over the past two months, forcing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes.

Israel has said its military aim had been to ensure the safe return of about 60,000 Israelis who fled from their communities along the northern border when Hezbollah started firing rockets at them in support of Hamas in Gaza.

In Lebanon, some cars flew national flags, others honked, and one woman could be seen flashing the victory sign with her fingers as people started to return to homes they had fled.

Many of the villages the people were likely returning to have been destroyed.

Hussam Arrout, a father of four who said he was displaced from Beirut's southern suburbs but originally from the southern border village of Mays al-Jabal, said he was itching to return to his ancestral home.

"The Israelis haven't withdrawn in full, they're still on the edge. So we decided to wait until the army announces that we can go in. Then we'll turn the cars on immediately and go to the village," he said.

'PERMANENT CESSATION'

Announcing the ceasefire, Biden spoke at the White House on Tuesday shortly after Israel's security cabinet approved the agreement in a 10-1 vote.

"This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities," Biden said. "What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again."

Israel will gradually withdraw its forces over 60 days as Lebanon's army takes control of territory near its border with Israel to ensure that Hezbollah does not rebuild its infrastructure there after a costly war, Biden said.

He said his administration was also pushing for an elusive ceasefire in Gaza and that it was possible that Saudi Arabia and Israel could normalize relations.

Egypt and Qatar, which along with the United States, have tried unsuccessfully to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza, welcomed the Lebanon truce. Qatar's foreign ministry said on Wednesday it hoped it would lead to a similar agreement to end the Gaza war.

Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Houthi rebels that have attacked Israel from Yemen, said it welcomed the ceasefire.

Hezbollah has not formally commented on the ceasefire but senior official Hassan Fadlallah told Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV that while it supported the extension of the Lebanese state's authority, the group would emerge from the war stronger.

Israel has dealt a series of blows to Hezbollah, notably the assassination of its veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday Israeli forces fired at several vehicles with suspects to prevent them from reaching a no-go zone in Lebanese territory and the suspects moved away.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the military to "act firmly and without compromise" should it happen again.

Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow Israel to focus on the threat from Iran, give the army an opportunity to rest and replenish supplies, and isolate Hamas.

Hezbollah was considerably weaker than it had been at the start of the conflict, he added.

"We have pushed them decades back. We eliminated Nasrallah, the axis of the axis. We have taken out the organization's top leadership, we have destroyed most of their rockets and missiles," said Netanyahu.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Iran should trash all these agreements and continue what it’s been doing! I guess that goes without saying.

The Israelis asked for this ceasefire cuz they were looking at escalating beyond their pay grade.

Irans trashed Israel’s invincibility

 

[Saif]

‘We lost a generation’

As the skies fell quiet over Beirut this week, displaced Lebanese piled into cars and headed south for home, but any return to normality remains elusive given their economy was already in freefall even before war broke out last year and no solutions seem at hand.

www.thedailystar.net

‘We lost a generation’
Lebanon’s education crisis deepens as half of public schools converted to shelters

As the skies fell quiet over Beirut this week, displaced Lebanese piled into cars and headed south for home, but any return to normality remains elusive given their economy was already in freefall even before war broke out last year and no solutions seem at hand.

A ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah came into effect at dawn on Wednesday after conflict escalated in September with Israel launching heavy bombing raids across the country and sending troops into south Lebanon.

Although the fighting has stopped - at least for now - hard days lie ahead for a worn-out people who were already reeling from multiple crises since the economic implosion of 2019.

The crisis has hit education especially hard.

At least 500 public schools, roughly one in two in what is a badly under-funded sector, were converted into shelters in recent months to house many of the 1.2 million people fleeing the fighting, Save the Children said last month.

And 2024 marks the sixth straight year that Lebanon's 1.5 million children faced significant disruptions to schooling, worsening their long-term physical and mental outlook, it said.

Ameer Shweekh is one of those children. Forced to flee his home in the southern city of Tyre two months ago, the 13-year-old got a place at the Omar El Zeeny public school in a working-class neighbourhood in Beirut when the school year started this month.

Shweekh said he still logs onto online classes from his former school when he finishes his new studies each afternoon. But he knows he is falling behind, especially in coding - there are simply no computers at his new school.

The education community has only received 19 percent of the donor funding it needs this year, said Janhvi Kanoria, a director at Education Above All (EAA), a Qatar-based global education foundation.

"We have a lost generation in Lebanon," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.​

 

[Saif]

Lebanon army deploys amid Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire

Lebanon’s military deployed troops and tanks across the country’s south on Thursday as a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war largely held for a second day.

www.newagebd.net

Lebanon army deploys amid Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire
Agence France-Presse . Beirut, Lebanon 28 November, 2024, 22:56

Lebanese army soldiers man a checkpoint in southern Lebanon's Marjayoun area after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. | AFP photo

Lebanon’s military deployed troops and tanks across the country’s south on Thursday as a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war largely held for a second day.

The truce ended a war that began a day after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, killing thousands in Lebanon and sparking mass displacements in both Lebanon and Israel.

Israel shifted its focus from Gaza to Lebanon in September to secure its northern border from Hezbollah attacks, dealing the Iran-backed Shia Muslim movement a series of staggering blows.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers were to become the only armed presence in south Lebanon, where Hezbollah has long held sway.

A Lebanese army source said its forces were ‘conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints’ south of the Litani River without advancing into areas where Israeli forces were still present.

In the border village of Qlaaya, residents threw rice and flowers to celebrate the arrival of Lebanese soldiers.

‘We only want the Lebanese army,’ chanted the residents of the Christian-majority village, as they clapped and cheered for the troops and waved the Lebanese red, white and green flag.

Since the ceasefire took effect on Wednesday, tens of thousands of Lebanese who fled their homes have headed back to their towns and villages, only to find scenes of devastation.

‘Despite all the destruction and the sorrow, we are happy to be back,’ said Umm Mohammed Bzeih, a widow who fled with her four children from the southern village of Zibqin two months ago.

‘I feel as if our souls have returned,’ she said, visibly exhausted as she swept up the shattered glass and pieces of stones that carpeted the floor.

While there was joy around Lebanon that the war has ended, it will take the country a long time to recover.

Even prior to the conflict, it had been wracked for years by political and economic crisis, with World Bank data from earlier this year indicating poverty had tripled in a decade.

On Thursday, there was a glimmer of hope as the official National News Agency reported parliament would meet to elect a president on January 9, following a two-year vacuum.

Lebanon is deeply divided along political and sectarian lines, with Hezbollah long dominating the Shia Muslim majority.

Hezbollah, the only armed group that refused to surrender its weapons following the 1975-90 civil war, built its popularity by providing health and education services.

It has maintained a formidable arsenal, supplied chiefly by Iran, which is widely regarded as more powerful than that of the Lebanese army.

While it did not take part in any direct talks for the ceasefire, which was brokered by the United States and France, it was represented by ally parliament speaker Nabih Berri.

Hezbollah proclaimed on Wednesday that it had achieved ‘victory’ in the war against Israel, after the truce took effect.

‘Victory from God almighty was the ally of the righteous cause,’ it said, adding its fighters would ‘remain in total readiness to deal with the Israeli enemy’s ambitions and its attacks’.

But the war saw Israel deal Hezbollah a string of unprecedented blows, key among them the killing in September of its long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Other losses suffered by the group include the death of a string of other top commanders, as well as the killing of the man touted to succeed Nasrallah, Hashem Safieddine.

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said his group was cooperating on the army’s deployment in the south.

There is ‘full cooperation’ with the Lebanese state in strengthening the army’s deployment, he said, adding the group had ‘no visible weapons or bases’ but ‘nobody can make residents leave their villages’.

In northern Israel, which has come under steady attack from Hezbollah for more than a year, there was hope tinged with scepticism over whether a truce can last.

Nissim Ravivo, a 70-year-old in the coastal city of Nahariya, just 10 kilometres from the border with Lebanon, voiced disappointment.

‘It’s a shame, we should have continued for at least another two months and finished the job,’ he said. ‘We still don’t feel safe and we are not happy about it.’

Lebanon says at least 3,823 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them in recent weeks.

On the Israeli side, the hostilities with Hezbollah have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities there say.

Under the ceasefire deal, Israeli forces will hold their positions but ‘a 60-day period will commence in which the Lebanese military and security forces will begin their deployment towards the south’, a US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Then Israel will begin a phased withdrawal without a vacuum forming that Hezbollah or others could rush into, the official said.

The Israeli and Lebanese militaries have both called on residents of frontline villages to avoid returning home immediately.

‘We control positions in the south of Lebanon, our planes continue to fly in Lebanese airspace,’ Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

‘We control positions in the south of Lebanon, our planes continue to fly in Lebanese airspace.’​

 

[Lulldapull]

We got 1.5 million children who ain’t goin to school for years now just in Karachi alone…….lol.

 

[Saif]

Halt truce breaches

Top Lebanese officials have urged Washington and Paris to press Israel to uphold a ceasefire, after dozens of military operations on Lebanese soil that Beirut has deemed violations, two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters yesterday.

www.thedailystar.net

Halt truce breaches
Lebanon asks US, France as 9 killed in Israeli strikes on southern villages

Top Lebanese officials have urged Washington and Paris to press Israel to uphold a ceasefire, after dozens of military operations on Lebanese soil that Beirut has deemed violations, two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters yesterday.

Deadly Israeli strikes on south Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket launches on an Israeli military post have put a US-brokered ceasefire between the two in an increasingly fragile position less than a week after it came into effect.

Nine people were killed in the Israeli strikes on villages in southern Lebanon later on Monday, after Israel said it was taking aim at dozens of Hezbollah targets in retaliation for an attack claimed by the militant group during a fragile ceasefire.

Hezbollah said it had launched an attack targeting an Israeli position in "the occupied hills of Kfar Shouba", in a disputed part of the border area between Israel and Lebanon.

Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally who negotiated the deal on behalf of Lebanon, spoke to officials at the White House and French presidency late Monday and expressed concern about the state of the ceasefire, the sources said.

Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry were immediately available to comment. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar on Monday, saying both sides should adhere to the ceasefire.​