Lebanon Cease-Fire Appears to Hold Despite Israeli
Strike
Israel said it had targeted militants headed to a rocket facility, but neither Israel nor Hezbollah
seemed keen to immediately return to full-scale fighting.
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Liam Stack Euan Ward Aaron Boxerman
By Liam Stack, Euan Ward and Aaron Boxerman
Liam Stack reported from Tel Aviv, Euan Ward from Baalbek, Lebanon, and Aaron Boxerman from Jerusalem.
Nov. 28, 2024 Updated 5:08 p.m. ET
The uneasy truce between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah largely held through its second
day in Lebanon on Thursday, although Israel conducted an airstrike that it said targeted militants
violating terms of the cease-fire deal.
The Israeli strike was the first of its kind since the U.S.-backed cease-fire went into effect before
dawn on Wednesday. But despite an exchange of blame between two parties of the deal — Israel
and Lebanon — neither of the war’s combatants, Israel or Hezbollah, seemed keen to immediately
return to full-scale fighting.
The Israeli military said its airstrike, near the border in southern Lebanon, had targeted two
militants arriving at a Hezbollah rocket facility that had been used to fire into Israel. Lebanon’s
army, which is set to play a major role in enforcing the truce, accused Israel of violating the cease-
fire “several times” on Thursday afternoon. Hezbollah did not immediately comment.
The Israeli military also said its soldiers had stopped militants from advancing into southern
Lebanon. “With the same power we used to secure the agreement, we will now enforce it no less
so,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the military’s chief of staff, said in a video statement on Thursday. He
added that Israel would respond to any deviations from the agreement “with fire.”
But after months of fighter jets and rockets in the skies and explosions erupting on the ground,
quiet reigned over much of Lebanon and northern Israel on Thursday.
A car drives past the ruins of a minaret, which is lying on its side by the road.
Residents driving past the minaret of a mosque, damaged in an Israeli airstrike in the village of Tayr Debba, Lebanon, on
Thursday. Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times
Israeli communities near the border passed a second consecutive day without sirens warning of
incoming rockets. And in Lebanon, displaced people began heading home to Beirut’s southern
suburbs, where Hezbollah holds sway and which Israel bombarded heavily in recent months.
Although Hezbollah was badly battered by Israel’s campaign, the group’s supporters and political
officials have tried to strike a defiant tone. A Hezbollah lawmaker in Lebanon’s Parliament, Hassan
Fadlallah, told reporters on Thursday that the group would defend itself if Israel attacked. But he
also said that it was still abiding by the agreement.
The war forced more than a million people in Lebanon — about a quarter of the country’s
population — to flee their homes, and thousands have been moving back toward their war-ravaged
communities since the cease-fire took effect.
Mahmoud Farran, 29, and his neighbor Youssef Badawi, 12, taking a break from sweeping away debris and shattered glass,
after returning home to their apartments in Tyre, Lebanon. Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times
But it is still far from clear when hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese will be able to
return to their homes in the country’s south, parts of which are still occupied by Israeli forces.
According to the cease-fire agreement, Israeli forces will gradually withdraw from southern
Lebanon over the next 60 days.
In the meantime, the Israeli military has warned displaced Lebanese to stay away from much of
southern Lebanon and imposed an overnight curfew across the area.
Lebanon’s army said on Thursday that it had moved troops into Hezbollah’s strongholds outside
Beirut and in the country’s south and east, in accordance with the cease-fire. The Lebanese
Parliament also extended the term of Joseph Aoun, the military’s top commander, for another year.
The Lebanese army also said it was operating “temporary checkpoints,” detonating unexploded
ordnance and working to open roads that had been closed or damaged during the fighting. It said
its goal was to help displaced people return to their homes.
The scene on Thursday near an apartment building in Tyre, Lebanon, that had been damaged by an Israeli airstrike. Daniel
Berehulak/The New York Times
One of those who went back home was Taflah Amar, 79. She returned to Baalbek, in Lebanon’s
northeast, on Thursday after two months in Beirut. She said she had “been crying all day.”
“I’m an old woman,” said Ms. Amar, who returned home to find much of her neighborhood
destroyed. “I’m not affiliated with anyone. What did I do to deserve this?”
Some of the most heavily damaged communities in Lebanon are the towns along its border with
Israel. For years they were effectively governed by Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.
Beginning in October 2023, the group used those towns to launch near-daily rocket attacks on
northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas, its Iran-backed ally in the Gaza Strip. The attacks forced
tens of thousands in Israel to flee their homes.
But few in Israel, where the government has provided assistance to people who fled the conflict,
appeared eager to rush back when the truce began.
Destruction on Thursday in Kfar Kila, in southern Lebanon, near the ruins of a house hit by Hezbollah fire in Metula, Israel.
Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
“We have no intention of going back home yet,” said Gal Avraham, 29, a dog trainer from Margaliot,
a small village in Israel just 200 yards from the border. Ms. Avraham and her husband took
advantage of the cease-fire to visit their home for the first time in over a year. The house, which
they had abandoned in haste, reeked of rotted food left behind after the electricity failed, she said.
Several homes in the village were damaged and many henhouses were destroyed. Ms. Avraham
expressed doubts that the cease-fire would hold, citing a siren that sounded overnight in a nearby
border town as a reminder of the lingering instability. “As far as we know, no one is returning
home,” she said.
Israel intensified its military response to Hezbollah’s attacks in mid-September and began a
ground invasion on Oct. 1. The war killed about 3,800 Lebanese and 100 Israelis, according to their
governments.
Under the cease-fire agreement, both Israel and Hezbollah will observe a 60-day truce. During that
time, Israel will gradually withdraw its military from Lebanon, Hezbollah will move its fighters out
of southern Lebanon, and the Lebanese Army will move in, helping enforce a de facto buffer zone
between Israel’s border and the Litani River.
The area will also be policed by a U.N. peacekeeping force; it and Lebanon’s military were not
combatants in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The deal was mediated by the United
States and France, and formally accepted by the governments of Israel and Lebanon.
But the timeline for complete implementation of the agreement remains uncertain. Israel has said
its actions will depend on how events unfold in Lebanon. A similar cease-fire that ended a war
between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 was never fully enforced.
Liam Stack reported from Tel Aviv, Euan Ward from Baalbek, Lebanon, and Aaron Boxerman from Jerusalem. Natan Odenheimer
contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Liam Stack is a Times reporter on special assignment in Israel, covering the war in Gaza. More about Liam Stack
Euan Ward is a reporter contributing to The Times from Beirut. More about Euan Ward
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem. More about Aaron Boxerman
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: As Lebanon Cease-Fire Persists, Israel Says It Struck
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