Lebanon warns displaced against rushing home after US-Iran deal

Authorities in southern Lebanon warn people displaced by three months of war between Israel and Hezbollah against rushing home despite a US-Iran deal to end the wider conflict, as Israel says it will not withdraw troops from the south.

Lebanon has seen the deadliest spillover of the conflict between the US and Iran, with thousands of people killed — according to Israel, mostly Hezbollah terror operatives — and some 1.2 million people uprooted by an Israeli offensive against the Iran-backed terror group, which opened fire on Israel in support of Tehran on March 2.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator between Tehran and Washington, announced that a deal was struck early on Monday local time, and that the pact called for “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

In south Lebanon, where Israeli forces have occupied a self-declared security zone, municipal councils issue statements calling on residents to hold off on returning, the state-run National News Agency reports.

Mona Mazeh, a displaced woman sheltering in Beirut’s Hamra district, has no immediate plans to return to her village near the southern city of Tyre. “Frankly, we are hesitant; Israel cannot be trusted,” she says.