IDF warns Lebanon truce violations ‘will be answered with fire’; troops shoot at suspects
Army stresses no civilian movement allowed south of Litani River as some return to villages where troops still deployed; soldiers detain 4 Hezbollah members who approached them
The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that any Hezbollah violation of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon “will be answered with fire,” after troops fired warning shots at people trying to approach several southern Lebanon villages on the first day of the ceasefire between the sides.
Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered “forceful action” to keep Hezbollah members from returning to villages near the border while the deal with Lebanon was being implemented.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said at a press conference: “The IDF’s mission is to enforce the agreement. The IDF is determined, and any violation will be answered with fire.”
Several suspects were hit by fire in Meiss al-Jabal, according to the IDF, which said it had shifted from active fighting in Lebanon to focusing on enforcing the agreement.
In the evening, the military said that troops had “killed terrorists today,” without elaborating or stating whether it was the same incident.
Meanwhile, the IDF said it had detained four Hezbollah members who approached troops in southern Lebanon and questioned them in the area.
The military said it was working to prevent people from reaching areas where troops are still positioned in southern Lebanon, and several routes to villages had been blocked.
Channel 12 reported Wednesday that the IDF also recently thwarted efforts by Hezbollah to develop chemical weapons.
The unsourced report didn’t specify when the Israeli operation took place but says the chemical weapons are believed to have been slated for use by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force during an invasion of northern Israel.
Israeli Air Force planes were still patrolling the skies and troops were still in positions in southern Lebanon. Overall, the calm appeared to hold, with rocket and drone fire on Israel halting since the early hours of the morning.
Earlier, the IDF said it fired warning shots at several vehicles in Lebanon that approached an area on the border where it was still prohibiting movement. The incident took place in the village of Kafr Kila, just across the border from the Israeli town of Metula, according to local authorities.
According to the IDF, the cars drove away after the warning shots.
مصادر لبنانية: نازحون يصلون إلى بوابة فاطمة في بلدة كفركلا بعد انسحاب جيش الاحتلال. pic.twitter.com/Kw2dg6qWN9
— الجرمق الإخباري (@aljarmaqnet) November 27, 2024
The IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman subsequently warned Lebanese civilians to hold off on returning to villages in southern Lebanon.
“For your safety and the safety of your family, you are prohibited from moving south toward the villages that the IDF has ordered to be evacuated or toward IDF forces in the area,” he said, adding that from 5 p.m. until 7 a.m. Thursday, “it is absolutely forbidden” to cross the Litani River in a southbound direction. Those who are south of the Litani must remain where they are, he said.
“We remind you that the IDF is still deployed in its positions in southern Lebanon in accordance with the terms of the ceasefire agreement, and our forces will deal firmly with any movement that violates this agreement,” Adraee added.
In a similar vein, Hagari said that IDF troops were still positioned in southern Lebanon “in the villages and areas from which there will be a gradual withdrawal, in accordance with the agreement.”
“Air Force planes continue to fly over Lebanon’s skies, collecting intelligence and are prepared to operate wherever necessary,” he said, adding that in the coming weeks, the IDF will “shape” its defenses on the northern border and “implement lessons from the past.”
The military published a map of areas in southern Lebanon that are currently off-limits for Lebanese civilians amid the gradual handover to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
“We are stationed and operating in this area. Armed operatives in the area marked on the map is a violation [of the ceasefire], and any armed operative will be eliminated or detained,” Hagari said.
Addressing Lebanese civilians, Hagari said: “As you saw throughout the war, we are doing what we say. For your safety, we call on you not to approach the area where our forces are. The ceasefire agreement is built in a gradual way, and we will update when you can return.”
The IDF has 60 days to withdraw under the deal, which seeks to end 14 months of Hezbollah-initiated fighting. During that time, the Lebanese army is to gradually take responsibility for southern Lebanon and an American-led committee will be established to adjudicate complaints regarding potential ceasefire violations, the IDF said.
Hezbollah forces will leave southern Lebanon, and its military infrastructure will be dismantled. The US has also reportedly provided a side letter specifying Israel’s rights to respond to any violations of the ceasefire.
A copy of the ceasefire deal was not published before it came into effect.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Wednesday that he and Katz had instructed the IDF to “not allow the [Lebanese] population to enter the area of the villages near the border in southern Lebanon.”
The IDF assessed that its enforcement of the ceasefire could potentially lead to several days of fighting with the terror group in the future.
Lebanon’s army said, meanwhile, that it had begun “reinforcing its presence in the South Litani sector and extending the state’s authority in coordination with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).”
An Israeli security official said Israeli forces remained in their positions hours after the ceasefire began and would only gradually withdraw.
He said the pace of the withdrawal and the scheduled return of Lebanese civilians to their homes would depend on whether the deal is implemented and enforced by all sides. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the deal and its implementation with the media.
Both Israel and the Lebanese army have warned residents of the southern villages to wait until IDF troops withdraw before returning. However, the AFP news agency reported that tens of thousands of residents had headed back to their hometowns in the hours after the truce took effect.
Katz said Hezbollah members must be prevented from reaching areas in southern Lebanon where the IDF is still prohibiting movement, “and if they endanger the IDF troops, they must be hit.”
Despite the danger, several videos were uploaded throughout the morning that appeared to show people returning home.
العائدون يدخلون الى كفركلا فجر اليوم ✌???? pic.twitter.com/oeyPN5x8Kh
— مصدر مسؤول (@fouadkhreiss) November 27, 2024
A short video apparently taken by a Lebanese man claiming to have returned to Kafr Kila showed widespread destruction, though no Israeli military presence could be seen.
Another clip posted to social media showed that Lebanese had reached the border wall between Kafr Kila and the Israeli community of Metula.
كاميرا التلفزيون العربي ترصد تمركز دبابة إسرائيلية داخل مدينة الخيام جنوبي لبنان@ramezelkadi pic.twitter.com/BYEtoodBA4
— التلفزيون العربي (@AlarabyTV) November 27, 2024
Live television footage also showed people walking around in the town of Khiam, in close range of an IDF tank.
Videos showed an Israeli flag being burned in a village after locals returned to previously evacuated areas. In the clips, a man can be seen removing the flag hung on a watchtower, before it was set on fire.
⚡️????????JUST IN:
Upon returning to Aita al-Shaab, South Lebanon, residents immediately took down Israel’s flag raised by Israeli forces on the town's water tank upon reaching its outskirts then they burned it???? pic.twitter.com/L2wNK22r6V
— war against crime (@ZahidKh735121) November 27, 2024
On the highway linking Beirut with south Lebanon, thousands of people drove south with their belongings and mattresses tied on top of their cars. Traffic was gridlocked at the northern entrance of the port city of Sidon.
“This is a moment of victory, pride, and honor for us, the Shiite sect, and for all of Lebanon,” said Hussein Sweidan, a resident returning to the port city of Tyre. He said he saw the ceasefire as a victory for Hezbollah.
Sporadic celebratory gunfire was heard at a main roundabout in the city, as people returning honked the horns of their cars and residents cheered.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati appealed to Israel to fully commit to the ceasefire and “withdraw from all the regions and positions it occupied.”
“I hope this will be a new page for Lebanon, I hope the coming days will lead to the election of a president,” Mikati said.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who negotiated the truce on behalf of Hezbollah, urged displaced residents to return home, despite the official instructions from the Israeli and Lebanese armies.
“Return to your land and your birthplace,” he said.
Berri called the last months of war “the most dangerous” in the history of Lebanon — apparently outstripping the civil war from 1975 to 1990 that nearly destroyed the entire country — but praised the Lebanese people for showing unity and urged the swift election of a president.
In Israel, the mood was far more subdued, with many concerned that the deal did not go far enough to rein in Hezbollah and that it did not address Gaza and the hostages still held there.
“I think it is still not safe to return to our homes because Hezbollah is still close to us,” said Eliyahu Maman, an Israeli displaced from the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, which is not far from the border with Lebanon and was hit hard by rockets fired from Lebanon.
Waves of IDF strikes until 4 a.m.
Several waves of strikes, targeting over 300 Hezbollah sites, were carried out from around 5 p.m. on Tuesday into the night, right up until the ceasefire took effect at 4 a.m.
One of the strikes in the Beqaa Valley, close to the Syrian border, targeted an underground Hezbollah precision-guided missile manufacturing and storage site, the military said.
The IDF said it spent four hours bombing the underground kilometer-long site, which contained machinery used to build precision-guided missiles, as well as depots to store them. An adjacent Radwan Force base was also struck, and the military estimated that several dozen Hezbollah operatives were killed.
Another strike shortly after midnight hit a border crossing between Syria and Lebanon, which the IDF said was used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons. Syrian media reported six dead in the strike.
Among the 300 Hezbollah sites struck on the day before the ceasefire, 42 were in Beirut, 48 were in the Beqaa Valley, and 150 were in southern Lebanon, according to the military.
The IDF said targets included 15 sites used by the terror group for the management and storage of funds, 64 command centers, 65 buildings used for military purposes, and 42 weapon depots.
The IDF said that another strike on Tuesday in Beirut killed Jafar Ali Samaha, the operations chief of Hezbollah’s aerial forces, known as Unit 127, which is responsible for drone and cruise missile attacks on Israel.
Throughout the war, the IDF said that it struck over 150 drone launch sites, some 20 depots where drones and cruise missiles were stored, and four manufacturing plants belonging to Unit 127.
The military has estimated that 70 percent of Hezbollah’s drone and cruise missile stockpile have been destroyed.
During the entire conflict, the military said, over 12,500 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon were struck, including 360 in Beirut’s southern suburbs. In the 2006 Second Lebanon War, for comparison, some 140 sites were struck in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
In September, the commander of the aerial forces, Muhammad Hussein Sarour, was killed in Beirut. Other top commanders in the unit have also been killed, including Samaha on Tuesday.
Amid the fighting, hundreds of explosive-laden drones launched by Hezbollah at Israel were intercepted, according to the IDF. Numerous drones have also impacted Israel, causing casualties and damage.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel the day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel, in support of its fellow Iran-backed terror group, drawing Israeli reprisals and leading to the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.
Fighting intensified in late September, with Israel killing much of Hezbollah’s leadership and launching a limited ground incursion on October 1 that has seen soldiers search villages for rockets and other arms held by the terror group, and tackle its terror tunnels and other infrastructure.
