Residents of south Lebanon try to return to villages for second day in a row

By AFP 27 January 2025, 2:45 pm

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Lebanese soldiers standing on a vehicle and Lebanese citizens, some carrying Hezbollah flags, preparing to return home to southern Lebanon, are seen from the window of an UN peacekeeper armored vehicle, in Mays al-Jabal village, southern Lebanon, January 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zaatari)

South Lebanon residents accompanied by the Lebanese Armed Forces are again trying to return to their villages, Lebanese media and AFP correspondents report.

After the initial 60-day window for Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon expired yesterday, mediating parties agreed to extend the deadline until February 18, meaning that residents of southern Lebanon villages in which the IDF is still deployed will be required to wait until then to return home.

Nevertheless, an AFP correspondent reports seeing dozens of vehicles carrying families headed toward border towns, a day after hundreds of residents tried unsuccessfully to return to their homes.

Lebanon’s health ministry says that fresh “Israeli enemy attacks while citizens attempt to return to their towns” wounded two people in the village of Bani Hayyan earlier today, including a child.

In the city of Bint Jbeil, an access point for many border villages, supporters of the Iran-backed terror group are distributing sweets, water and images of former chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in September. Others hand out stickers celebrating the “victory from God” as women hold pictures of slain Hezbollah fighters.