Israeli troops withdrew from all but five points in south Lebanon on Tuesday (Feb 18), allowing displaced residents to return to border villages largely destroyed in more than a year of hostilities.
“The entire village has been reduced to rubble. It’s a disaster zone,” said Alaa al-Zein, back in Kfar Kila after the delayed withdrawal deadline expired Tuesday morning under an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deal.
Unable to reach Kfar Kila by car because of the rubble and army restrictions, residents had parked at the entrance of the village and returned on foot.
Many were returning to destroyed or heavily damaged homes, farmland and businesses, after more than a year of clashes that included two months of all-out war and ended with a Nov 27 ceasefire.
Israel had announced just before the pullout deadline that it would keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border, and on Tuesday its defence minister, Israel Katz, confirmed the deployment and vowed action against any “violation” by militant group Hezbollah.
On Tuesday, Lebanon said any Israeli presence on its soil constituted “occupation”, warning it would refer to the UN Security Council to push Israel to withdraw and that its armed forces were ready to assume duties at the border.
Lebanon’s army announced it had deployed in 11 southern border villages and other areas from which Israeli troops have pulled, starting Monday evening.
In a joint statement, UN envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the UNIFIL peacekeeping force said that at “the end of the period set” for Israel’s withdrawal and the Lebanese army’s deployment, any further “delay in this process is not what we hoped would happen” and a violation of a 2006 Security Council resolution that ended a past Israel-Hezbollah war.
Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at US think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Israeli army spokesman, said that once Lebanon’s army was “fully deployed” in the south, the Israeli army “will likely complete its withdrawal… as long as Hezbollah continues to adhere to the agreement”.
“EMBRACE THE LAND”
In Lebanon, the cost of reconstruction is expected to reach more than US$10 billion, while more than 100,000 people remain displaced, according to the United Nations.
But despite the devastation, Zein said villagers were adamant on returning.
“The whole village is returning, we will set up tents and sit on the ground” if needed, he said, striking a defiant tone.
Others were going south to look for the bodies of their relatives under the rubble.
