MAYS AL-JABAL, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli forces in southern Lebanon on Sunday opened fire on protesters demanding their withdrawal in line with a ceasefire agreement, killing at least 22 and injuring 124, Lebanese health officials reported.
Hours later, the White House said Sunday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend the deadline for Israeli troops to depart southern Lebanon until Feb. 18, after Israel requested more time to withdraw beyond the 60-day deadline stipulated in a ceasefire agreement that halted the Israel-Hezbollah war in late November.
Israel has said that it needs to stay longer because the Lebanese army has not deployed to all areas of southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah does not reestablish its presence in the area. The Lebanese army has said it cannot deploy until Israeli forces withdraw.
The White House said in a statement that “the arrangement between Lebanon and Israel, monitored by the United States, will continue to be in effect until February 18, 2025.” It added that the respective governments “will also begin negotiations for the return of Lebanese prisoners captured after October 7, 2023.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli government, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati confirmed the extension.
The announcement came hours after demonstrators, some of them carrying Hezbollah flags, attempted to enter several villages to protest Israel’s failure to withdraw from southern Lebanon by the original Sunday deadline.
The dead included six women and a Lebanese army soldier, the Health Ministry said in a statement. People were reported wounded in nearly 20 villages in the border area.
The Israeli army blamed Hezbollah for stirring up Sunday's protests.
It said in a statement that its troops fired warning shots to “remove threats in a number of areas where suspects were identified approaching.” It added that a number of suspects in proximity to Israeli troops were apprehended and were being questioned.
The development in Lebanon comes as Israel kept thousands of Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday, accusing Hamas of violating a fragile ceasefire by changing the order of hostages it has released.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement addressing the people of southern Lebanon on Sunday that “Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable, and I am following up on this issue at the highest levels to ensure your rights and dignity.”
He urged them to “exercise self-restraint and trust in the Lebanese Armed Forces.” The Lebanese army, in a separate statement, said it was escorting civilians into some towns in the border area and called on residents to follow military instructions to ensure their safety.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, whose Amal Movement party is allied with Hezbollah and who served as an interlocutor between the militant group and the U.S. during ceasefire negotiations, said that Sunday's bloodshed “is a clear and urgent call for the international community to act immediately and compel Israel to withdraw from occupied Lebanese territories.”
An Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli military, Avichay Adraee, posted on X that Hezbollah had sent “rioters” and is "trying to heat up the situation to cover up its situation and status in Lebanon and the Arab world.”
He called Sunday morning for residents of the border area not to attempt to return to their villages.
U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the head of mission of the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro, called in a joint statement for both Israel and Lebanon to comply with their obligations under the ceasefire agreement.
“The fact is that the timelines envisaged in the November Understanding have not been met,” the statement said. “As seen tragically this morning, conditions are not yet in place for the safe return of citizens to their villages along the Blue Line.”
UNIFIL said that further violence risks undermining the fragile security situation in the area and "prospects for stability ushered in by the cessation of hostilities and the formation of a government in Lebanon.”
It called for the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, the removal of unauthorized weapons and assets south of the Litani River, the redeployment of the Lebanese army in all of south Lebanon and ensuring the safe and dignified return of displaced civilians on both sides of the Blue Line.
An AP team was stranded overnight at a UNIFIL base near Mays al-Jabal after the Israeli army erected roadblocks Saturday while they were joining a patrol by peacekeepers. The journalists reported hearing gunshots and booming sounds Sunday morning from the base, and peacekeepers said that dozens of protesters had gathered nearby.
In the village of Aita al Shaab, families wandered over flattened concrete structures looking for remnants of the homes they left behind. No Israeli forces were present.
“These are our houses,” said Hussein Bajouk, one of the returning residents. “However much they destroy, we will rebuild.”
Bajouk added that he is convinced that former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs in September, is really still alive.
“I don’t know how much we’re going to wait, another month or two months... but the Sayyed will come out and speak,” he said using an honorific for Nasrallah.
On the other side of the border in the kibbutz of Manara, Orna Weinberg surveyed the devastation of the recent conflict on her neighbors and the Lebanese villages on the other side of the frontier. The sound of gunfire sporadically popped in the distance.
“Unfortunately, we have no way of defending our own children without harming their children," Weinberg, 58, said. "It’s a tragedy to all sides.”
Some 112,000 Lebanese remain displaced, out of over 1 million who fled their homes during the war.
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Sewell reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller in Washington, Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut, Bilal Hussein in Aita al-Shaab, Lebanon, and Sam McNeil in Manara, Israel, contributed to this report.
Kareem Chehayeb And Abby Sewell, The Associated Press
