Mays al-Jabal, Lebanon-Israeli forces in the south of Lebanon opened fire on Sunday against protesters who demanded their withdrawal in accordance with a high fire agreement, killing at least 22 and wounding 124, Lebanese health officials reported .
Hours later, the White House said on Sunday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed 60 days stipulated in a high fire agreement that stopped war between Israel and Hezbollah at the end of November.
Israel has said that it needs to stay longer because the Lebanese army has not been deployed in all areas of the southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah does not restore his presence in the area. The Lebanese army has said that it cannot be deployed until Israeli forces retire.
The White House said in a statement that “the agreement between Lebanon and Israel, monitored by the United States, will remain in force until February 18, 2025”. He added that the respective governments “will also begin negotiations for the return of the Lebanese prisoners captured after October 7, 2023.”
There were no immediate comments from the Israeli government, but Lebanese interim prime minister, Najib Mikati, confirmed the extension.
The announcement occurred hours after the protesters, some of them carrying hezbollah flags, tried to enter several villages to protest the fact that Israel did not withdraw from the south of Lebanon before the original deadline of Sunday.
Among the dead are six women and a Labanese army soldier, said the Ministry of Health in a statement. Wounded in almost 20 villages in the border area were reported.
The Israeli army blamed Hezbollah to cause Sunday’s protests.
He said in a statement that his troops made warning shots to “eliminate threats in a series of areas where it was identified that suspects approached.” He added that several suspects that were close to Israeli troops were arrested and were being interrogated.
The event in Lebanon occurs when Israel prevented thousands of Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday, accusing Hamas of violating a fragile high fire by changing the order of the hostages he released.
The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, said in a statement addressed to the people of Southern Lebanon on Sunday that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon are not negotiable, and I am monitoring this issue at the highest level to guarantee their rights and dignity”.
He urged “exercising moderation and confidence in the Lebanese armed forces.” The Lebanese army, in a separate statement, said it was escorting civilians to some locations in the border area and asked residents to follow military instructions to guarantee their safety.
The president of Parliament, Nabih Berri, whose amal movement party is ally with Hezbollah and that served as an interlocutor between the militant group and the United States during the negotiations of Alto El Fuego, said that the swap of blood on Sunday “is a clear call and Urgent for the international community to act immediately and force Israel to retire from occupied Lebanese territories. ”
An Israeli army spokesman in the Arab language, Avichay Adraee, published in X that Hezbollah had sent “fuss” and is “trying to heat the situation to cover up her situation and status in Lebanon and the Arab world.”
On Sunday morning he asked the residents of the border area not to try to return to their villages.
The UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the UN Mission Chief of the UN Peace Force known as Unifil, Lieutenant General Aroldo Lázaro, asked in a joint statement that both Israel and Lebanon with its obligations under the agreement of Alto El Fuego.
“The fact is that the deadlines planned in the November understanding have not been fulfilled,” says the statement. “As tragically seen this morning, the conditions for the safe return of citizens to their peoples along the blue line are not yet given.”
The FPNUL said that greater violence runs the risk of undermining the fragile security situation in the area and the “stability perspectives initiated by the cessation of hostilities and the formation of a government in Lebanon.”
He requested the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, the withdrawal of unauthorized weapons and assets to the south of the Litani River, the redoubt of the Lebanese army throughout the south of Lebanon and the guarantee of the safe and worthy return of the civilians displaced on both sides of the Río Azul. Line.
An AP team was stranded during the night at a FPNUL base near Mays al-Jabal after the Israeli army raised barricades on Saturday while joining a patrol of peace forces. The journalists informed having heard shots and rumbles on Sunday morning from the base, and the peace forces said that dozens of protesters had gathered nearby.
In the Aita al Shaab village, families wandered about flattened concrete structures in search of houses that left behind. There were no Israeli forces present.
“These are our houses,” said Hussein Bajo, one of the residents who returned. “As much as they destroy, we will rebuild.”
Underuk added that he is convinced that former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who died in an Israeli attack in the South Beirut suburbs in September, really is still alive.
“I don’t know how much we are going to wait, another month or two months … but Sayyed will come out and talk,” he said using an honorary for Nasrallah.
On the other side of the border, in the Kibutz de Manara, Orna Weinberg observed the devastation of the recent conflict in its neighbors and in the Lebanese villages on the other side of the border. The sound of the shots was heard sporadically in the distance.
“Unfortunately, we have no way to defend our own children without damaging their own,” said Weinberg, 58. “It’s a tragedy for all sides.”
Some 112,000 Lebanese are still displaced, of one million people who fled their homes during the war.
