Israel says ceasefire with Hizbullah was breached

Israel said on Thursday that its ceasefire with Hizbullah was breached hours after Lebanese security sources said Israeli tanks attacked six areas of southern Lebanon, calling into question a truce reached after more than a year of fighting.
A ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hizbullah took effect on Wednesday under a deal brokered by the US and France, intended to allow people in both countries to start returning to homes in border areas shattered by 14 months of fighting.
The Israeli military said the ceasefire was violated after what it called suspects, some in vehicles, arrived at several areas in the southern zone.
Hizbullah member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah said Israel had violated the ceasefire deal by firing on civilians returning home to their villages along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel. The Israeli military has urged residents of towns along the border strip not to return yet for their own safety.
“The Israeli enemy is attacking those returning to the border villages,” Fadlallah told reporters after a parliament session, adding, “there are violations today by Israel, even in this form”.
Israeli tank fire hit six areas within that border strip on Thursday morning, striking Markaba, Wazzani and Kfarchouba, Khiyam, Taybe and the agricultural plains around Marjayoun, state media and Lebanese security sources said.
All of the areas lie within two kilometres of the Blue Line demarcating the border between Lebanon and Israel. One of the security sources said two people were wounded in Markaba.
Lebanese families displaced from their homes near the southern border have tried to return to check on their properties. But Israeli troops remain stationed within Lebanese territory in towns along the border and Reuters reporters heard surveillance drones flying over parts of southern Lebanon.
There was no immediate comment on the tank rounds from Iran-backed Hizbullah or Israel, who had been fighting for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war.
The agreement, a rare diplomatic feat in a region racked by conflict, ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Hizbullah militant group in years. But Israel is still fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.
Under the ceasefire terms, Israeli forces can take up to 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon but neither side can launch offensive operations. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he had instructed the military not to allow residents back to villages near the border.
Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri, the top interlocutor for Lebanon in negotiating the deal, had said on Wednesday that residents could return home.
Hizbullah has said its fighters “remain fully equipped to deal with the aspirations and assaults of the Israeli enemy.” Its forces will monitor Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon “with their hands on the trigger”.
The group has been weakened by casualties and the killing of its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders by Israel.
Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up bombardments on central areas and pushed tanks deeper in the north and south of the enclave.
Six people were killed in two separate air strikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south.
In Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several air strikes destroying a multi-floor building and hitting roads outside mosques. At least seven people were killed in some of those strikes, health officials said.
Medics said at least two people, a woman and a child, were killed in tank shelling that hit western areas of Nuseirat, while an air strike killed five others in a house nearby.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northern-west area of the city, residents said.
There has been no Israeli comment on the fighting in Gaza overnight and early Thursday.
Israel’s 13-month campaign in Gaza, with the avowed intent of eradicating Hamas militants, has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all the enclave’s population at least once, according to Gaza officials. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.
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The war was launched in response to an attack by Hamas-led fighters who killed around 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages in Israel on October 7th, 2023, Israel has said.
Months of attempts to negotiate a Gaza ceasefire have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold. Mediator Qatar has suspended its efforts until the sides are prepared to make concessions. – Agencies
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