Displaced Lebanese heading home despite Israel’s refusal to halt aggression as part of Iran-US deal

Forcibly displaced Lebanese are returning to their towns in southern Lebanon despite Israel's open defiance of an agreement between the US and Iran that declared permanent termination of military operations on all fronts.

In the first official reaction from an Israeli leader to last night's ceasefire announcement, Israel Katz, Israel's minister of military affairs, said that occupation troops will remain in southern Lebanon and promptly defended the Zionist entity's policies.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I are leading a clear policy that determines that the IDF will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, without any time limit, to protect, from there, the border and Israeli communities against jihadist elements,” he said.

He added that local inhabitants would be expelled from the security zones, and all he alleged to be terror-related infrastructure, both on the ground and underground, including homes in villages along the contact line, will be obliterated.

He claimed that maintaining control over the security zones is among the IDF's most significant accomplishments in the war, noting that for that reason, "we oppose an IDF withdrawal from Lebanon, despite all the existing pressures and those that will still come," in reference to Israeli occupation forces.

He asserted that Netanyahu had made these positions unequivocally clear to US President Trump and other senior US officials, adding that he himself had conveyed the same message to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Katz further noted that the IDF also backs maintaining control over the security zone in Lebanon.

“We will not compromise on Israel’s security interests" and the protection of settlers "and we will not withdraw from the security zones,” he said.

The Israeli minister also cautioned that any Iranian attack on Israel triggered by events in Lebanon would be met with full force, reiterating the regime's sole commitment to settlers and the security.

Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported that Netanyahu had informed Trump that “Israel is not bound by the terms of the agreement” reached between Iran and Washington and will not withdraw from Lebanon.

The daily cited Israeli sources as stating that Netanyahu further informed Trump that the Israeli military would stay in its existing positions inside Lebanon and would retaliate against any strikes launched by the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

Earlier this morning, Lebanese families who were forcibly displaced from their homes started making their way back to their southern towns in defiance of both continued Israeli assaults and widespread recommendations from their local municipal authorities to wait until the recent US-Iran agreement becomes clearer.

Local municipalities in southern Lebanon have confirmed to sources on the ground that Israeli occupation forces are still firmly entrenched north of the Litani River, cautioning that the situation is not yet secure for residents to permanently return to these contested areas.

Israel continues to raid southern Lebanon in open defiance of Iran-US deal

Israeli occupation forces carried out strikes against areas in southern Lebanon on Monday, in blatant violation of the Iran-US deal.

According to Lebanese media outlets, shortly after the announcement of the Iran-US MoU, which included the end of the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, Israeli occupation forces pressed ahead with their assaults south of the Arab country, violating the deal.

Israeli warplanes carried out two airstrikes in the early hours of Monday, targeting the town of Majdal Zoun. A drone strike hit areas in the town of Kfar Tebnit as well.

Iran and the United States on Sunday finalized the text of an MoU aimed at ending the war, said Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).

It is expected to bring an immediate and permanent halt to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and end the US naval blockade against Iran. The agreement is scheduled to be officially signed in Switzerland on June 19.

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