Barred from returning home, displaced civilians from southern Lebanon are setting up camps outside their villages where Israeli troops remain.
By Bilal Ghazeye, Drop Site
Soldiers fired on civilians trying to return home to the Lebanese village of Kfarkela last week, several eyewitnesses told Drop Site News, leaving one person dead and 15 wounded. Kfarkela is one of several towns and villages in southern Lebanon that remain occupied by the Israeli military in violation of the 60-day withdrawal deadline, which expired on January 26, as part of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel.
The U.S. has now extended the deadline to February 18, leaving a group of displaced residents to set up tents and launch a sit-in protest against the ongoing Israeli occupation of their land.
Abu Rabea Hamoud is still unable to return home to Kfarkela 14 months after Israel heavily bombed, then invaded, the area forcing his family to flee. He is now camped out with dozens of other men several kilometers from the entrance to the village where Israeli troops have cut off access with barbed wire, barricades, and tanks.
From the encampment, protesters say they can hear Israeli tanks raiding their village and drones flying overhead. “I’ll stay here for as long as it takes—a month or longer if need be,” Hamoud told Drop Site.
Convoys of civilians that headed towards their villages on January 26 were fired on by Israeli troops. At least 27 people were killed and over 150 wounded, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Since then, displaced residents have camped outside of their villages in protest in a tense standoff with the Israeli military.
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