1 killed in Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on 1st full day of ceasefire deal

An Israeli drone strike killed one person in southern Lebanon on Friday, the first full day of a U.S.-brokered truce meant to end hostilities between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah, paramedics in the area and the head of a local hospital told Reuters.

The reports of the strike came minutes after U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States had banned Israel from further bombing in Lebanon.

“Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!” Trump said in a social media post, using an atypically harsher tone than usual with its longtime ally.

Hezbollah halted fire at Israeli targets when the ceasefire came into force but has stopped short of publicly endorsing the deal. The group has credited Iranian pressure on Washington for yielding the ceasefire.

Trump also said any deal the United States reaches with Iran “is in no way subject to Lebanon” but that the U.S. will “deal with” the militant Hezbollah situation in an appropriate manner.

Iran says Hormuz Strait ‘completely open’

The U.S. president also said the U.S. will get Iran’s nuclear material but did not specify how. “No money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form.”

Trump’s posts came after Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Aragchi, said that passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is “declared completely open” for the remaining period of the ceasefire.

Trump announced the 10-day ceasefire agreement between the governments of Lebanon and Israel on Thursday, adding to optimism that the parallel war between the United States and Iran could be also nearing an end.

People uprooted by the war in Lebanon began returning to devastated towns and neighbourhoods on Friday, with many finding their homes destroyed or uninhabitable and hesitant to stay for fear the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel could unravel.

While Trump says Lebanon and Israel will work toward a longer-term deal, the ceasefire leaves big questions unanswered. Notably, it does not demand Israel withdraw troops occupying parts of the south, where Israel’s defence minister said Israeli troops would continue to demolish homes he claimed were being used by Hezbollah.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, whose armed wing operates independently of the Lebanese state, says it maintains “the right to resist.”

The Lebanese army reported ceasefire violations by Israel on Friday, including intermittent shelling of several southern Lebanese villages, and urged citizens to hold off on returning to southern villages and towns.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Residents scared to return

In the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, hills of rubble stood where there had once been apartment blocks and the smell of death hung in the air. Ali Hamza said he found his home intact but that people were scared to return for now.

“It is impossible to live in these circumstances, and with these smells,” he said. “A full return is difficult now, despite the hardship of displacement.”

He had gathered his kids’ school books from the house, he said. “We lost everything; we don’t want them to lose the school year.”

In Qasmiyeh in southern Lebanon, cars were driving across a makeshift crossing over the Litani River, hastily erected after the ceasefire came into effect at midnight local time. Israel destroyed all the major bridges over the Litani during the war, blowing up the one at Qasmiyeh on Thursday.

Over 2,000 killed, 1.2 million displaced

Lebanon was dragged to war on March 2, when Hezbollah opened fire at Israel in support of Iran, sparking an Israeli offensive that authorities say has killed at least least 2,294 people, wounded some 7,544 people and displaced 1.2 million just 15 months after the last Hezbollah-Israel war. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said ​that the death toll remains non-final pending debris ​removal, body recovery and ⁠DNA identification.

The ⁠ministry ‌said 100 paramedics and health workers were among the dead while nearly ⁠a quarter of those killed were women, children and ‌medics, underscoring the heavy civilian toll from the fighting.

Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel. Two ⁠Israeli civilians and 13 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the hostilities with Hezbollah since March 2, Israeli officials said.

Israel to hold ‘security zone’

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said territory south of the Litani River, which meets the Mediterranean 30 kilometres north of the Israeli border, had yet to be cleared of Hezbollah militants and arms.

“This will have to be done politically or through the continuation of the IDF’s military activity after the ceasefire ends,” he said.

Katz said Israeli forces would continue to hold seized territory, saying Israel had established a “security zone” extending 10 kilometres into Lebanon.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, whose administration this week held Beirut’s highest-level contact with Israel in decades, said Lebanon faced “sensitive and pivotal” negotiations with Israel.

He said his focus was to ensure the ceasefire stood, Israel withdrew, and prisoners were released.

The Lebanese government has sought Hezbollah’s peaceful disarmament for a year and banned its military activities on March 2.

‘It’s unliveable’

Israel ordered residents out of swathes of the south during the war.

“There’s destruction, and it’s unliveable. Unliveable. We’re taking our things and leaving again,” said Fadel Badreddine, who was visiting the largely destroyed southern city of Nabatieh with his wife and son.

Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at the Chatham House policy institute in London, said it was likely there would be “a continuation of Israeli activity in southern Lebanon to bolster its objective of establishing a buffer zone.”

“Even if there are military infringements of the terms of the ceasefire, this will not necessarily mean abandoning the different stakeholders’ political commitment to the ceasefire terms,” she said.

Any move by the Lebanese state to disarm Hezbollah by force would risk conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990. Attempts by a Western-backed government to curb Hezbollah in 2008 prompted a brief civil conflict.

Trump said he would be inviting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Aoun to the White House for “meaningful talks” between the two countries.