Thousands of Lebanese on the road home after the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah

Thousands of Lebanese driven out by hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel set out for home on Wednesday, as a ceasefire came into effect after two months of open warfare between the Israeli army and the Lebanese armed movement allied with Iran.

The truce, in effect since 04:00 (02:00 GMT), interrupts the conflict, which has left thousands dead and 900,000 displaced in Lebanon, and also displacing tens of thousands in Israel.

Without waiting for the green light from the Lebanese army, thousands of residents of southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa in the east of the country, all Hezbollah strongholds, have also started to return home, AFP journalists have noted.

In the southern suburbs of Beirut, still under bombardment at dawn on Wednesday, Hezbollah supporters rode on motorbikes, brandishing the party's yellow flag, some chanting slogans in praise of their leader, Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel in late September, to the sound of celebratory gunfire.

“We are returning to this heroic suburb” that “has won, we are proud,” Nizam Hamadé, an engineer who had come to inspect his house, told AFP.

The southern road was taken over by overloaded cars and vans, drivers honking their horns and singing. “Our feeling is indescribable. Lebanon has won, the state has won, the people have won,” said a father.

The Israeli army has, however, warned residents of southern Lebanon not to approach positions where it remains deployed – and said it fired on a vehicle doing so, forcing its occupants to turn back – or villages whose evacuation it has ordered.

The pro-Iranian movement had opened a front “of support” for Hamas against Israel at the start of the war in Gaza, triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil.

After months of cross-border firefights, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign against Hezbollah on September 23 and deployed 30 soldiers in southern Lebanon, bordering northern Israel.

– “New beginning” –

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday hailed “a new beginning” for Lebanon, for which Washington and Paris had been working for weeks.

According to Lebanese authorities, at least 3,823 people have been killed in Lebanon in total since October 2023, most since late September. On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed in 13 months, according to the authorities.

The cessation of hostilities plan provides for a gradual withdrawal over 60 days of Hezbollah and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, near the Israeli-Lebanese border, to allow the Lebanese army to deploy there, according to US envoy Amos Hochstein.

According to Joe Biden, the agreement is designed to lead to a permanent cessation of hostilities between the two sides, and “what remains of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed (…) to threaten the security of Israel again.”

The United States, a major ally of Israel, and France will ensure that the ceasefire is “implemented in its entirety,” he pledged with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.

– “Focus on Iran” –

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the duration of the ceasefire would depend “on what happens in Lebanon.” “We maintain complete freedom of military action” in Lebanon, he added: “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to rearm, we will attack.”

Motorists parade with the Hezbollah flag in the southern suburbs of Beirut, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect on November 27, 2024 in Lebanon © AFP – –

The Lebanese party, which let the head of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri negotiate on its behalf, has not yet commented on the agreement. It has emerged considerably weakened by the conflict, its leadership largely decimated.

Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the truce would allow Israel to “focus on the Iranian threat” and “intensify” its pressure on Palestinian Hamas.

Commitments about which Israeli editorialists expressed their doubts on Wednesday: “Netanyahu proposed that we begin to believe him”, but “why didn't he do in Gaza what he did in Lebanon”, and “can't we stop the war in Gaza to bring back the hostages”, asked in particular the major central daily Yediot Aharonot.

“The announcement of the ceasefire in Lebanon is a victory and a major achievement for the resistance,” a member of the Hamas political bureau told AFP on Wednesday, affirming that his movement was also “ready” for a truce in the Gaza Strip.

The Houthi rebels in Yemen, also supported by Tehran like Hezbollah, Hamas and other armed groups in the region, have for their part welcomed a “victory” for Hezbollah.

A sworn enemy of Israel, Iran “firmly supports the Lebanese government, nation and resistance,” Iranian diplomatic spokesman Esmail Baghai said in Tehran.

At the same time, the Israeli army is continuing its strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, where at least 22 people were killed on Tuesday, according to the Civil Defense, and where thousands of displaced people are trying to protect themselves from the rain and cold.

The war was triggered by the Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of 1,207 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data, including hostages killed or died in captivity.

The Israeli offensive carried out in retaliation in Gaza has left at least 44,249 dead, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

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