Displaced residents return to southern Lebanon as Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire appears to hold – Middle East crisis live

Lebanon’s National News Agency has reported that Israeli forces in Khiam in south-east Lebanon have “opened fire on a group of journalists while they were covering the return of the residents and the Israeli withdrawal from the town”

It reports they sustained various injuries and have been transferred to Hasbaya hospital.

The claims have not been independently verified.

More details soon …

National security adviser Jake Sullivan has reinforced a message earlier from US president Joe Biden that the country wishes to make a renewed push to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

Speaking on MSNBC in the US, Sullivan said “President Biden intends to begin that work today by having his envoys engage with Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and other actors in the region.”

Israel’s military has issued a joint statement with the Shin Bet claiming to have foiled a smuggling operation which was transferring weapons from Iran into the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Al Jazeera is carrying some quotes Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has been Iran’s speaker of parliament since 2020. It reports he said:

We welcome the ceasefire in Lebanon. After the oppression and criminal bombings by the Zionist regime, tonight the people are experiencing peace. [Hezbollah] never allowed even an inch of their land to fall into enemy hands.

We hope this peace will also be established in Gaza. However, the claim by the criminal [Benjamin] Netanyahu that his focus is on Iran is nonsense.

When the war in Lebanon began, and they martyred Nasrallah [Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israel in Beirut in September] and committed the pager massacre, along with so many other crimes, they thought Hezbollah had been weakened. During my trip to Beirut, amidst the smoke, fire, and the immense pressure on the people, I saw courage and patience among them. I saw that Hezbollah was more alive than ever.

France appears to have ruled out acting on the international criminal court (ICC) arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes relating to the Gaza war.

Reuters reports a foreign ministry statement said that as Israel was not a party to the ICC, this conveyed immunity. 124 countries are party to the court. Notable states that are not party to the court include China, India, Israel, Russia, and the US.

Biden: US will make renewed push to achieve ceasefire in Gaza ‘without Hamas in power’

Senior Hezbollah official Hassan Fadlallah, who is an MP in Lebanon, has said that the group would retain the right to defend itself if Israel attacked.

On Tuesday Fadlallah insisted that Hezbollah would remain active after its war with Israel ends, including by helping displaced Lebanese return to their villages and rebuilding areas destroyed by Israeli strikes.

Israel’s military today has said in a statement that it “remains in southern Lebanon and will actively enforce every violation of the ceasefire agreement.”

It said it had “identified suspects in southern Lebanon and fired toward them” over the last few hours.

The 60-day ceasefire period started in the early hours of Wednesday, and the terms are understood to be that by the end of it, Israel will have withdrawn from Lebanon, and the Lebanese army will be in position south of the Litani River to enforce an end to hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.

Hind Khoudary is in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for Al Jazeera, and she reports that, with news of the ceasefire to the north, Palestinians “are very happy for Lebanon because they feel what war means.”

She writes that with the expectation that they might be next in line for a ceasefire deal “there is a little bit of hope.”

However, she adds:

But most people feel abandoned, that no one is hearing them. We’re talking about more than a year of continuous war, with over 40,000 Palestinians killed. People in northern Gaza are starving, forcibly displaced … and no one is listening.

Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting that 12 people “including children and women” have been killed by an Israeli strike on the Al-Tabi’in school in central Gaza City, which was housing displaced people.

The Hamas-led health authority in the territory has issued its latest casualty figures for the conflict, claiming that 44,282 Palestinians have been killed and 104,880 injured in Israel’s military offensive since 7 October 2023.

It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

Our video team have put together this report with clips of families in Lebanon making the journey back towards their homes now that a ceasefire agreement has been reached.

Reuters reports that Air France is to continue its suspension of flights to Tel Aviv and Beirut until the end of the year.

The British Red Cross has said it welcomes the news of a ceasefire in Lebanon, but says challenges lie ahead.

In a statement, Gabriel Karlsson, the Middle East country cluster manager at the British Red Cross, said:

Our attention must now shift to the immense challenges faced by the hundreds of thousands of people who have had their lives turned upside down and fled their homes. Many of them will be returning to areas extensively damaged by the conflict, often with little to no access to basic services. With winter upon us the harsh weather conditions only add to their hardship.

The statement urged people who wanted to help to make donations to its Gaza Crisis Appeal, with funds being directed across the region.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has also issued an alert calling for an urgent scaling up of humanitarian aid to Lebanon.

Juan Gabriel Wells, the IRC country director in Lebanon, said:

More than one hundred thousand homes have been either partially or fully destroyed across southern Lebanon, Bekaa and Beirut leaving thousands of families without a safe place to return to. It is vital that the international community now also invest in Lebanon’s recovery. These efforts are not only about rebuilding infrastructure; they are also critical to restoring dignity and hope to families who have lost everything.

Israel’s military has issued a statement in which it has claimed that its recent military action in Lebanon destroyed 70% of the “stockpile of UAVs and cruise missiles” used by Hezbollah’s aerial unit, and also “eliminated” the unit’s chain of command.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Hani Mahmoud, reporting for Al Jazeera from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza writes that “There has been no end to attacks in Gaza since early this morning.”

He said the northern gate of Kamal Adwan hospital has been under “relentless attack”, and said that “quadcopters are causing massive fear and intimidation” and are impeding “the movement of paramedics, medical staff and volunteers bringing injured people to the hospital.”

Al Jazeera reports that since last night Israeli security forces have arrested at least 15 people in raids in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that two people were injured by live fire in Tubas, and have been transferred to hospital. The Wafa correspondent reported “widespread destruction of property and infrastructure” during the operation.

The total number of arrests made by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since 7 October 2023 has been put at more than 11,800 by the Palestinian Prisoners Society. Many are detained without charge, it says.

In a statement, Israel’s military has claimed that in the hours leading up to the ceasefire coming into effect, it “conducted intelligence-based strikes on dozens of Hezbollah command centers, launchers, weapons storage facilities, and terrorist infrastructure sites” in Beirut, Tyre, and Nabatieh. It also claimed to have targeted what it said were “smuggling routes between Syria and Lebanon.”