Lebanon warns displaced against rushing home after US-Iran deal
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- Lebanese municipal councils in the south urged displaced residents to hold off on returning, even after Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif announced a US-Iran deal calling for "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon"
- Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would not withdraw from security zones in southern Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria, noting Israel is not a party to the US-Iran deal, and pledged retaliation if Iran attacks Israel over events in Lebanon
- Roughly 1.2 million people were uprooted by Israel's three-month offensive against Hezbollah, which opened fire on Israel on March 2 in support of Tehran
- The Israeli military has been razing villages in southern Lebanon for weeks, saying it is targeting Hezbollah militants embedded in the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim region; Katz said the security zone would be cleared of local residents and "terrorist infrastructure"
- Displaced woman Mona Mazeh, sheltering in Beirut's Hamra district, said: "Frankly, we are hesitant; Israel cannot be trusted," while Mohammed Daqdouq returned to a devastated Nabatieh and said residents would need "a lifetime to rebuild"
- Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards established Hezbollah in 1982, had insisted a Lebanon ceasefire be included in any broader deal with Washington
Why it matters: Israel's explicit refusal to honor a diplomatic deal it is not party to means the roughly 1.2 million displaced Lebanese — concentrated among the country's Shi'ite population — remain stranded even as Washington and Tehran declare military operations over. With Israeli forces still bulldozing villages in a self-declared security zone and reserving the right to retaliate, the gap between the headline agreement and ground conditions leaves hundreds of thousands in prolonged displacement.
