HULA: Near a south Lebanon border town, residents waited Monday to go home after months of displacement, on the eve of an extended deadline for Israel to withdraw troops under a fragile truce.
“It’s our right to return to our town, to our homes, to retrieve the bodies of our martyrs, and return in full freedom,” said Hula resident Amin Koteish, a farmer, surrounded by his neighbours.
But their return is not yet guaranteed.
Israel’s army announced Monday it would stay “temporarily in five strategic points along the border” beyond the Tuesday deadline, including one overlooking Hula.
On Sunday, a teenager was killed when, according to official Lebanese media, Israeli troops opened fire towards Hula “after residents entered” the town, passing a Lebanese army checkpoint and “dirt barriers set up by the Israeli army”.
Lebanese try again to return to southern border villages
On Monday, Lebanese soldiers stood guard along one of the roads leading to the town, near military vehicles and ambulances, as people waited for Israeli troops to withdraw and so that they could retrieve the body of Khadija Atwi, the teen killed by Israeli fire.
“We will sleep here and stay near the (Lebanese) army” until the Israelis withdraw, said Koteish.
The pullout deadline is set to expire on Tuesday morning.
“It is our legitimate and legal right to return to our homes” after more than a year of displacement, he said, expressing anger at the delay after Israel missed a January deadline.
‘Let me go in’
The ceasefire came into effect on November 27 after more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war.
Under the deal, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in the south alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was also to pull back north of the Litani River – about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border – and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
After Atwi was killed on Sunday, the Lebanese army urged people against going to southern areas where its forces had not finished deploying, “in order to preserve their safety and avoid the death of innocent people”.
A number of people were trapped inside Hula overnight, until their exit could be safely coordinated on Monday, among them Fadi Koteish, 58.
“We entered (Hula) on Sunday, and suddenly the shooting started,” he told AFP.
“Women, children and young men started running in every direction – some went into the valleys, others hid in houses.”
He said he and his family couldn’t move “because of the intensity of the fire”.
“We slept the night there, hoping that UNIFIL or the Red Cross would come and get us out,” he said, referring to peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
Atwi’s family meanwhile had faced an excruciating wait before they were able to retrieve her body on Monday afternoon.
“I’ll carry her out on my own back – just let me go in,” her mother Haifa Hussein had said in tears before the family was able to enter the town.
“I don’t know anything about my daughter… can anyone accept her lying there on the ground?”
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