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Israel pulled its troops from towns and villages in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, according to the United Nations, but held onto strategic positions along the border as a deadline elapsed for both Israel and Hezbollah to fully withdraw from the south.<\/p>\n
The ongoing Israeli presence on Lebanese territory risked undermining a fragile truce with the militant group Hezbollah, and raised fears in Lebanon of another prolonged Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n
A cease-fire in November ended the deadliest war between the two sides in decades. The truce agreement stipulated that Israel and Hezbollah would cede control of southern Lebanon to the Lebanese military by the end of January \u2014 a deadline that was then extended until Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But Israel announced on Monday that its forces would remain temporarily in five \u201cstrategic\u201d vantage points, just across the border in Lebanese territory, until the Lebanese military fully implemented its end of the agreement, according to an Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. He declined to say how long the Israeli troops would stay there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Under the cease-fire, Hezbollah must also pull out from southern Lebanon and the Lebanese military is supposed to deploy there. Israeli officials have accused both Hezbollah and the Lebanese army of not upholding the agreement. The Lebanese military has said it can only fully deploy in the south once Israel\u2019s military has withdrawn.<\/p>\n
A U.S.-led monitoring committee overseeing the truce has praised the Lebanese military\u2019s deployment but has not released data on the extent to which Hezbollah has withdrawn its weapons and fighters.<\/p>\n
The latest conflict began after the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese armed group allied with Hamas, began firing rockets on Israeli positions. Israel and Hezbollah then exchanged cross-border fire for months, until the conflict escalated into an intense war<\/a> that forced over a million people from their homes.<\/p>\n For months, thousands of displaced Lebanese have been unable to return to areas controlled by Israel amid repeated warnings by the Israeli military to stay away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The United Nations, which has long maintained a peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, said on Tuesday that Israel had pulled out of population centers in the south. But the organization said the continued Israeli presence in the country violated a U.N. resolution which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war<\/a> and formed the basis of the recent cease-fire.<\/p>\n The resolution, agreed to by Israel and Lebanon, also required Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters from the south.<\/p>\n The delay was \u201cnot what we hoped would happen,\u201d the U.N. Lebanon envoy and the U.N. peacekeeping force in the region said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n Displaced residents flocked south on Tuesday despite the continued Israeli presence, some arriving home to find their towns and villages almost unrecognizable. At least two people were injured by Israeli gunfire, according to Lebanon\u2019s state-run news agency.<\/p>\n \u201cOur memories are destroyed, and our homes,\u201d said Yara Awada, 24, who entered Houla, a southern border town, on Tuesday for the first time in more than a year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Most of Ms. Awada\u2019s neighborhood is now in ruins, with her family home toppled to the ground. Her grandfather had built the house with his bare hands more than 100 years ago, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis house meant a lot to my family. Ten children grew up in this house with their cousins and relatives. Then suddenly, within seconds, everything was gone,\u201d Ms. Awada said. \u201cIt hurts our heart to see our village like this. But we still have hope and we are going to rebuild our village better than it was.\u201d<\/p>\n