Lebanese health officials reported that the Israeli forces in southern Lebanon opened fire on Sunday to demonstrators calling for withdrawing in line with the ceasefire agreement, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 80 others.
The Ministry of Health said in a statement that among the dead were two women and soldiers in the Lebanese army. It was reported that people were injured in more than ten villages in the border area.
The demonstrators, some of whom were carrying the flags of Hezbollah, tried to enter several villages to protest against Israel’s failure to withdraw from southern Lebanon by the 60 -day deadline stipulated in the ceasefire agreement that stopped the war between Israel and Hezbollah in late November .
Israel said it needed to stay longer because the Lebanese army has not spread in all areas of southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah is not returning its presence in the region. The Lebanese army said it would not be able to deploy before the withdrawal of the Israeli forces.
The Israeli army accused Hezbollah of stirring up the protests on Sunday.
She said in a statement that its forces launched warning shots “to remove threats in a number of areas that have been identified by the suspects.” He added that a number of suspects were arrested near the Israeli forces and being interrogated.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement addressing the people of southern Lebanon on Sunday, that “the sovereignty of Lebanon and its land unity are not negotiable, and I am following this issue at the highest levels to ensure your rights and dignity.”
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He urged them to “control and trust in the Lebanese army.” The Lebanese army said in a separate statement that it was accompanying civilians to some towns in the border area and called on residents to follow military instructions to ensure their safety.
The Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, whose party is allied with the Amal movement with Hezbollah and who worked as a interlocutor between the armed group and the United States during the ceasefire negotiations, said that the bloodshed that took place on Sunday “is a clear and urgent call to the international community to move immediately and forcing” Israel withdraws From the occupied Lebanese lands.
The Israeli army spokesman, Avichai Adraei, published on the X that Hezbollah sent “rioters” and “trying to fuel the situation to cover up its situation and put it in Lebanon and the Arab world.”
On Sunday morning, residents of the border area called for not to try to return to their villages.
The United Nations Special Coordinator in Lebanon, Jenin Hennis Blaskart, and head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL, Lieutenant -General Aroldo Lazaro, in a joint statement, Israel and Lebanon to comply with their obligations under the ceasefire agreement.
“The truth is that the time schedules stipulated in the November understanding were not fulfilled,” the statement said. “And as we have tragicly seen this morning, the conditions are not yet prepared for the safe return of citizens to their villages along the blue line.”
UNIFIL said that more violence threatens to undermine the fragile security situation in the region and “the prospects for stability allowed by stopping hostilities and forming a government in Lebanon.”
He called for the complete withdrawal of the Israeli forces, the removal of weapons and unauthorized origins south of the Litani River, the return of the Lebanese army in all southern Lebanon, and ensuring a safe and dignified return of displaced civilians on both sides of the Blue River. line.
The AP team was crossed throughout the night at UNIFIL base near Mays Al -Jabal after the Israeli army set up roadblocks on Saturday while joining a patrol of the peacekeeping forces. The journalists reported that they heard gunshots and resounding sounds on Sunday morning from Al Qaeda, and the peacekeepers said that dozens of demonstrators had gathered nearby.
In the village of Aita Al -Shaab, families toured over the flat concrete buildings in search of the remains of the houses they left behind. There were no Israeli forces present.
“These are our homes,” said Hussein Bajouk, one of the returning population. “Whatever they are destroyed, we will rebuild”
Bajuk added that he was convinced that former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli raid on the southern suburb of Beirut last September, was still already alive.
“I do not know how much we will wait, for another month or two months … but the master will go out and speak,” he said, using an honor to the victory of God.
On the other side of the border, in the lighthouse Kibbutz, Orna Winberg wiped the destruction left by the recent conflict over its neighbors and the Lebanese villages on the other side of the border. The shooting sound heard intermittently from a distance.
“Unfortunately, we have no way to defend our children without damaging their children,” said Weinberg, 58. “It is a tragedy for all parties.”
About 112,000 displaced Lebanese are still among more than a million who fled their homes during the war.
& Version 2025 Canadian press