10day

Hezbollah warns it has its ‘finger on the trigger’ in case of Israeli violations of the temporary ceasefire.

Displaced Lebanese have begun cautiously returning to their homes in the south after Lebanon and Israel agreed to a 10-day truce, even as the Lebanese army calls on residents to delay their return and Hezbollah warns it has its “finger on the trigger” in case of Israeli violations.

Tens of thousands of people poured into areas of southern Lebanon on Friday morning hours after the truce went into effect, many heading back to homes and villages battered by more than a month of Israeli attacks.

“People just couldn’t wait,” reported Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr from Nabatieh, one of the hardest hit areas.

“Even if it’s 10 days, they want to return to their homes. Some of them are just coming to see what remains of their homes, what remains of their lives.

“They want to show that they don’t want to give up their lands,” added Khodr.

While the ceasefire largely appeared to hold, Lebanon’s army accused Israel of several early violations on Friday, including intermittent shelling of ‌southern Lebanese villages.

Lebanon’s National News Agency also reported that unexploded ordnance killed a boy in the town of Majdal Selem, while rescuers uncovered the bodies of at least a dozen people killed in earlier attacks in Tyre.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the ceasefire “may already be undermined by ongoing military operations” and called for “the safety of civilians on both sides of the border”.

Hezbollah said its fighters “will keep their finger on the trigger because they are wary of the enemy’s treachery”.

Israeli air strikes and a ground invasion of parts of southern Lebanon have killed more than 2,100 people and displaced some 1.2 million in the latest round of fighting, according to Lebanese authorities.

Hezbollah attacks, meanwhile, killed two Israeli civilians, while 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon, according to Israel.

Israeli officials have said they intend to maintain control over Lebanese territory extending to the Litani River as a “buffer zone” against Hezbollah.

‘Unliveable’

As residents assessed the damage to their hometowns, some pledged to stay, while others – finding nothing to return to or fearing the fragile truce could collapse – said they would leave again.

“There’s destruction and it’s unliveable. Unliveable. We’re taking our things and leaving again,” said Fadel Badreddine, who returned to Nabatieh with his young son and wife. “May God grant us relief and end this whole thing permanently – not temporarily – so we can return to our homes and lands.”

Al Jazeera’s Khodr said “wherever you look you see damage, destruction” in Nabatieh. “So much has been lost in this conflict in the past 46 days.”

If the ceasefire holds, it could ease one of the main points of tension in US-Iran negotiations. Iran and mediator Pakistan had maintained that Lebanon should be covered in a separate US-Iran ceasefire framework, while Israel claimed it was not part of that deal and continued its attacks.

Ali Akbar Dareini, a researcher at Iran’s Center for Strategic Studies, said the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire had removed one obstacle to wider negotiations between the US and Iran because Tehran views the regional conflict as interconnected, describing this as a “unity of fronts”.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country hosted last week’s ceasefire talks between the US and Iran, welcomed the Israel-Lebanon truce on Friday and expressed “hope that it will pave the way for sustainable peace”.

He also praised the mediation role of US President Donald Trump, who has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to the White House for “meaningful talks”.

“Pakistan reaffirms its unwavering support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon, and will continue to support all efforts aimed at lasting peace in the region,” Sharif said on X.

A 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has gone into effect. It began at midnight local time (21:00 GMT on Thursday), after being announced by US President Donald Trump.

April 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day cease-fire starting at 5:00 p.m., pausing Israel’s six-week war on Hezbollah in that country.

Trump spoke with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, both leaders confirmed, and agreed to the cease-fire and to work toward a more permanent peace between their countries.

Aoun and Netanyahu spoke to each other separately because Aoun declined to participate in a call with the Israeli leader because Israel was still bombing Lebanon, CNN reported.

“These two Leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10 Day CEASEFIRE,” he said in a post on Truth Social.

Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine have been directed to work with officials of both countries to achieve a more lasting peace.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in a statement thanked the United States, France, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan for helping to accomplish the cease-fire he had pursued “since the first day of the way,” NBC News reported.

After the United States and Israel launched the Iran war, Israel also launched offensives against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, from which it often launches attacks at Israel.

This week, delegates from the neighboring countries conducted diplomatic talks for the first time since 1993, meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss a cease-fire and the larger issue of Hezbollah’s hijacking of Lebanese lands in order to target Israel.

Netanayhu said Thursday in a video statement that Israeli forces would “remain in a 10-kilometer security zone, which will allow us to prevent infiltration into communities and anti-tank missile fire.”

Calling the negotiations potentially historic, Netanyahu said that Israel’s chief goal is to disarm Hezbollah and its ability to invade or launch weapons across the Lebanese border into Israel.

“That is where we will remain,” he said. “We are not leaving.”

After the diplomatic talks on Wednesday, Rubio reinforced that a key part of the meeting and now peace talks between the two nations is to end Hezbollah’s destabilizing influence in Lebanon and the wider Middle East.

“We have to remember the Lebanese people are victims of Hezbollah,” Rubio said, also noting that accomplishing a lasting peace “will take time.”

March 27 (UPI) — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that his country “will exact [a] heavy price” for Israeli strikes on infrastructure Friday.

In a post on X, he said the strikes hit two of Iran’s largest steel factories, a power plant, civilian nuclear sites and other infrastructure.

“Israel claims it acted in coordination with the U.S.,” Araghchi wrote.

The airstrikes came less than a day after U.S. President Donald Trump extended a pause on U.S. attacks on Iran’s energy sites for 10 days. Trump said he extended the deadline because negotiations between the United States and Iran had been going “well,” and Iran had permitted several oil tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

The “attack contradicts POTUS extended deadline for diplomacy,” Araghchi wrote.

“Iran will exact HEAVY price for Israeli crimes.”

The Guardian reported that the airstrikes hit the Khondab heavy-water plant near Arak and a uranium production facility in Ardakan. They also hit steel plants in Khuzestan and Mobarakeh.

Iran’s state-run Tasnim news agency said Tehran was considering launching attacks on six steel factories in Israel in retaliation for Friday’s attack.

The Israeli military said Friday it had intercepted missiles launched by Iran, NBC News reported.

“A short while ago, the [Israel Defense Forces] identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel,” the military said in a statement. “Defensive systems are operating to intercept the treat.”

Speaking Friday evening at the Future Investment Initiative in Miami, Trump said Iran is “on the run,” one month after the United States and Israel jointly began attacking the country. The violence came amid negotiations in which the United States sought to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

“Tonight, we’re closer than ever to the rise of the Middle East that is finally free at least from Iranian terror, aggression and nuclear blackmail,” Trump said.

Iran is “being decimated,” he added.

“We are talking now, they want to make a deal.”

The United States offered a proposed 15-point peace plan to Iran this week, but Araghchi said Iranian officials had no plans to negotiate it “for now.”

“This is Israel’s war, and people of the region and people of the U.S. are paying the price for it,” he said.

Iran’s Red Crescent Society reported Friday that more than 70,000 residential units, 600 schools and 300 health facilities had been damaged since the start of the war.