According to locals, state media, and an AFP journalist, calm returned to Lebanon’s southern border on Friday when a temporary ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza went into force.
Deadly gunfights have broken out along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel since the Gaza conflict broke out on October 7. The fighting has mostly included the Israeli army, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, and Palestinian terrorist groups.
Hezbollah has not yet stated if it will abide by the conditions of the deal mediated by Qatar with assistance from Egypt and the US.
“A precarious calm reigned on the southern border, with the humanitarian truce in Gaza coming into effect at 7:00 in the morning (0500 GMT),” Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.
During the four-day cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, Hamas would swap 150 Palestinian detainees detained in Israeli jails for 50 hostages taken from Israel during the October 7 strikes.
Ten minutes before the ceasefire, an AFP correspondent in the Marjayoun border area claimed to have heard gunfire. After that, the weapons stopped firing.
A local in the border area of Alma al-Shaab likewise said that all was quiet and that he could no longer hear Israeli aircraft or reconnaissance drones passing overhead.
Hezbollah escalated cross-border strikes on the Israeli army on the eve of the truce, and the Israeli army retaliated by pounding southern Lebanon.
The influential Shiite organization supported by Iran stated on Friday that it was behind 22 attacks on Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, where it had killed seven men that day.
Since the strikes against Israel on October 7, when the Palestinian Islamist movement is said to have killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized roughly 240 hostages, Hezbollah claims it has been supporting Hamas.
According to the Hamas leadership of the Palestinian territories, Israel has sworn to destroy Hamas and its retaliatory air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed nearly 15,000 Palestinians, thousands of them children.
An AFP assessment indicates that 109 people have died in Lebanon as a result of the cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, at least 77 of whom were fighters and 14 civilians.
Three journalists, an official from Hamas’s military branch in Lebanon, and the son of the leader of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc were among those slain.
According to Israeli sources, there have been three civilian deaths and six troops on the Israeli side.
