By Laila Bassam and Alexander Cornwell
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli forces killed 15 people in southern Lebanon on Sunday as a deadline for their withdrawal and thousands of people tried to return to their homes in defiance of Israeli military orders, Lebanese authorities said.
Israel said on Friday it would keep troops in the south beyond Sunday’s deadline in a U.S. ceasefire that ended last year’s war with Hezbollah, and said Lebanon had not yet fully enforced, with south Lebanon freeing from Hezbollah Arms and the Lebanese Army are deployed.
The U.S.-backed military in Lebanon, which on Sunday reported one of its soldiers among those killed by Israeli forces, has accused Israel of hesitating in its withdrawal.
The Hezbollah-Israel conflict was fought in parallel with Gaza, resulting in a major Israeli offensive that uprooted more than a million people in Lebanon and left the Iranian-backed group severely weakened.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 15 people were killed and another 83 wounded in numerous locations in the south in what it described as Israeli attacks on citizens as they tried to enter their still-occupied cities.
The Israeli military said its troops “operated in southern Lebanon, firing warning shots to eliminate threats in a number of areas where suspects approaching the troops were identified.” It also said “a number of suspects … who posed an imminent threat” were arrested.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television, broadcast from several locations in the south, showed footage of residents marching toward villages early Sunday, some holding the group’s flag and images of Hezbollah fighters fighting in the war were killed.
An Israeli military spokesman, addressing the people of southern Lebanon in a post on to which they can return.
Hezbollah has blamed the Lebanese state for ensuring Israel’s withdrawal.
Hassan Fadlallah, the Hezbollah lawmaker, said Lebanon was committed to the ceasefire undertaking but Israel had opposed it with U.S. support. The White House said Friday that a short, temporary extension to the ceasefire was urgently needed.
President urges southerners to trust army
“What is happening in the border villages is a liberation of the power of the people, and our people will not be broken by the Israeli army,” he told Reuters. “We want the state to play its full role and the army to be deployed in the villages.”
“We work with it to make its mission possible.”
The top U.N. official in Lebanon and the head of U.N. peacekeepers in the south said conditions were “not yet in place” for the safe return of Lebanese citizens to villages near the border. “The fact is that the schedules” in the ceasefire “have not been fulfilled,” they said in a statement.
The agreement set a 60-day timeline for implementation.
President Joseph Aoun, Lebanon’s army commander until parliament elected him head of state on Jan. 9, called on the people of the south to exercise self-restraint and trust in the Lebanese military.
“Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable and I am pursuing this issue at the highest level to ensure your rights and dignity,” he said in a statement.
Israel has not said how long its forces would remain in the south, where the Israeli military says it has seized Hezbollah weapons and dismantled its infrastructure.
Israel said its offensive against Hezbollah was aimed at securing the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis who were forced to leave homes on the border by Hezbollah rocket fire.
Hezbollah opened fire in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas on October 8, 2023, at the start of the Gaza Strip War.
