Nearly a year after truce, women in south Lebanon say war never ended

TYRE: Nearly a year after a truce was meant to bring calm to Lebanon’s border with Israel, tens of thousands of people have not yet returned to ruined towns in the south, kept away by deadly Israeli strikes and slim prospects of rebuilding.

Among them, 50-year-old farmer Zeinab Mehdi, who fled her home in the border town of Naqoura last year when the war between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah intensified, joining more than a million people fleeing the south’s hilly villages.

Mehdi, like many of those who left, placed her hopes in a US-brokered ceasefire agreed on November 26, 2024 that ordered hostilities to stop “to enable civilians on both sides of (the border) to return safely to their lands and homes.”

TRUCE DID NOT END ISRAELI STRIKES

But while rockets are no longer launched from Lebanon, Israel has kept up strikes and troops occupying hilltops in Lebanon still flatten homes, according to residents, Lebanese officials and rights organizations.

Nearly a year after truce, women in south Lebanon say war never ended

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