Lebanon warns displaced against rushing home after US-Iran deal

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM — Authorities in southern Lebanon warned displaced residents on Monday not to rush back to their homes following three months of war between Israel and Hezbollah, despite reports of a U.S.-Iran agreement aimed at ending the wider regional conflict. Israel, however, said it would not withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon.

Lebanon has endured the deadliest spillover of the Israel-Iran proxy conflict, with thousands killed and around 1.2 million people displaced after an Israeli offensive targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which began firing on Israel in support of Tehran on March 2.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has played a mediating role between Tehran and Washington, said a deal was reached early Monday local time. He stated that the agreement calls for the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts,” including Lebanon.

Despite the announcement, municipal councils in southern Lebanon—where Israeli forces have maintained positions in a self-declared security zone—urged residents to delay returning, according to the state-run National News Agency.

Displaced residents in Beirut expressed caution about returning home. Mona Mazeh, who is sheltering in the capital’s Hamra district, said she had no immediate plans to go back to her village near Tyre in southern Lebanon.

“Frankly, we are hesitant; Israel cannot be trusted,” she said.

Israel says it is not part of U.S.-Iran deal

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel was not a party to the U.S.-Iran agreement and would not withdraw from what he described as security zones in southern Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria. He added that Israel would retaliate if Iran attacked in response to developments in Lebanon.

Katz also said the security zone in southern Lebanon would be cleared of local residents and that all militant infrastructure would be dismantled, including homes in villages near the border, referring to Hezbollah positions.

The Israeli military has been demolishing villages in southern Lebanon for weeks, saying it is targeting Hezbollah fighters embedded in civilian areas of the predominantly Shi’ite region. Hundreds of thousands of residents remain displaced across the country.

In the southern city of Nabatieh, heavily damaged by the fighting, resident Mohammed Daqdouq returned briefly on Monday to assess his home.

“We’ll need a lifetime to rebuild—to rebuild it again and bring Nabatieh back to how it was,” he said.

Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards helped establish Hezbollah in 1982, had previously insisted that any broader agreement with the United States include a ceasefire in Lebanon.

— Reporting by Jihed Abidellaoui and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Gareth Jones/Reuters