Israeli fire kills at least 22 in southern Lebanon as civilians try to return home
_The Lebanese government says 22 people were killed and 124 wounded when Israeli troops opened fire as residents tried to re-enter villages in the south._
Israel's army opened fire in southern Lebanon on 2025-01-26, killing at least 22 people and wounding at least 124 more as civilians tried to return to villages that had been emptied during the war, according to an Al Jazeera report citing Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health. The report says one of the dead was a Lebanese soldier, underscoring how the day's violence affected both civilians and state personnel.
The timing is central to the story. Under a ceasefire agreement reached in November, Israeli troops were supposed to withdraw from southern Lebanon by 02:00 GMT on Sunday. Instead, the Israeli military told residents of more than 60 villages not to return, and the shooting took place as people attempted to go home. That means the deaths were not the result of a distant exchange but of a confrontation over who gets to control access to the south at the moment of withdrawal.
Lebanon's army said the deadline had passed and that the ceasefire terms required an Israeli pullback alongside a Lebanese army deployment and U.N. peacekeepers. The Al Jazeera report says Hezbollah had agreed to move north of the Litani River and dismantle military infrastructure in the south. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Lebanon for the delay, while Beirut rejected that claim and urged Israel to respect the agreement.
The ceasefire details matter because they show why the fire on civilians is so politically charged. If a withdrawal is supposed to open space for displaced people to return, shooting at those returnees creates immediate doubt about whether the agreement is functioning at all. The report does not say whether the civilians were close to any military target or whether the firing came from a specific position, but it does clearly indicate that the victims were trying to go home.
Violence on a withdrawal day also changes the meaning of the ceasefire. It is one thing to argue over where a line should be drawn, and another to have that dispute resolved with live fire. Lebanon's public-health tally suggests a serious casualty event, while the army's statement turns it into a matter of national sovereignty and international compliance.
For now, the evidence supports a sharp and alarming conclusion: the day Israeli forces were expected to leave southern Lebanon, they instead fired on people returning home, and the result was at least 22 dead and many more wounded. That is a direct test of the ceasefire and of the credibility of the withdrawal timetable it was meant to create.
