Lebanese defy warnings against rushing back home after truce

A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah brought calm to the countries’ border area, though reactions were varied from the many thousands displaced by the conflict on both sides.

The main coastal highway connecting Beirut with the southern Lebanese cities of Sidon and Tyre was clogged for a second day on Thursday as people rushed to get home, despite warnings from the country’s government and the Israeli military to await the all-clear. There was more caution on the Israeli side, as some residents remain concerned about whether the truce would hold.

The U.S.-brokered deal, in effect since dawn on Wednesday, suspended more than a year of hostilities that had raged in parallel to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The conflict was for months limited to the cross-border trading of missile fire, but intensified in September when Israel launched strikes against the leadership of the Iran-backed group and a ground invasion the following month.

About 3,700 people have been killed in Lebanon during the Israeli offensive and 1.2 million — more than a fifth of the population — have been displaced. Tens of thousands of Israelis were forced to abandon homes in the north of Israel earlier in the conflict, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made their safe return a top military priority. About 50 Israeli soldiers have been killed.

For a second consecutive day, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson warned Lebanese citizens against returning to the devastated Israeli border area. In a post on X, he named specific towns and villages and attached a map showing the prohibited area marked by a line and shaded in red.

Many Lebanese appeared to ignore the missive, despite reports of Israeli military activity after the truce came into effect. The IDF said it attacked a Hezbollah facility in southern Lebanon after identifying “terrorist activity,” having earlier opened fire at “several suspects” who had breached “the conditions of the ceasefire.” Two people were wounded by Israeli gunfire on Thursday in the village of Markaba, according to Lebanon’s official news agency.

Hezbollah and its supporters claimed the truce deal as a form of victory.

“We prevailed over the enemy and defeated its project in Lebanon,” Mohammad Raad, who heads Hezbollah’s bloc in parliament, wrote in an op-ed published on Thursday. Hezbollah, like Hamas, is designated a terrorist organization in the U.S. and many other countries.

But that was hardly the view among most Lebanese, including those from areas known to be under the group’s sway. Many pondered what’s next for their country after a ruinous military confrontation just years after an economic collapse.

“Gulf states won’t put a penny into reconstruction if Hezbollah gets to keep its weapons and celebrate victory,” said Sawsan Daher, who was displaced from her home in Beirut’s southern suburbs, referring to the role played by Gulf funding after the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war.

The ceasefire agreement initially prohibits Hezbollah from having an armed presence south of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Israeli border, with the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers patrolling the territory. That’s in line with a U.N. resolution that ended the 2006 war but was never fully implemented.

“There’s no certainty what’s going to happen north of the Litani and who will disarm Hezbollah,” said Sami Nader, director of the Beirut-based Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.

Wary Israelis

On the other side of the border, a TV poll found that 37% of Israelis supported the Hezbollah truce, while 32% were opposed and 31% undecided — a sign the population is divided on whether enough has been done to degrade Iran’s most powerful allied proxy group.

And Israelis who left the north shortly after the conflict began in October 2023 were wary of returning home too soon.

Some sounded the alarm at seeing Lebanese on the other side of the border fence, in areas still meant to be off-limits.

“It would appear for now that Radwan is coming back faster than we are,” Avichai Stern, mayor of the Israeli border town Kiryat Shmona, told Channel 14 TV, referring to Hezbollah’s commando unit. “I will certainly tell my townspeople not to come back like lambs to the slaughter.”

The ceasefire is for an initial 60-day period, and could be extended indefinitely if conditions can be agreed.

“We must not get ahead of ourselves,” said Zeev Elkin, the Israeli cabinet minister in charge of rehabilitating the northern communities, when asked on Army Radio when he would call on evacuees to return home. “If the truce proves itself over these coming two months, a decision on changing the policy will be made.”