Israeli warplanes launched three airstrikes on southern Lebanon Monday, striking the villages of Al-Mahmoudiyah, Al-Ayshiyah, Arabsalim, and Humin Al-Fawqa just hours after low-altitude flyovers rattled residents in the Al-Zahrani area of Nabatieh governorate. The attacks mark the latest breach of the November 2024 ceasefire agreement, which was meant to bring lasting calm after months of cross-border violence. According to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), no casualties have yet been reported, but fear lingers in homes where windows still rattle from the sonic booms. Israel claims the strikes targeted Hezbollah infrastructure a familiar justification that Lebanese officials increasingly view as pretextual.
The ceasefire, brokered in late 2024, required Israel to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon by January 2025. Yet nearly ten months later, Israeli forces remain entrenched at five strategic border outposts a fact Hezbollah cites as justification for retaining its arms. In August, Lebanon’s government approved a national plan to place all weapons under state control, a move aimed at consolidating sovereignty. Hezbollah swiftly rejected it, declaring it would not disarm until Israeli troops vacate every inch of occupied territory. This impasse has turned the ceasefire into a fragile shell observed in name but violated in practice. “They speak of peace while keeping boots on our soil,” said a local elder in Humin Al-Fawqa, who asked not to be named. “How can we trust their bombs won’t follow?”
Neither the Lebanese government nor Hezbollah issued an immediate response to Monday’s strikes a silence that speaks volumes in a region where rhetoric often escalates faster than rockets. Analysts suggest Hezbollah may be exercising restraint to avoid derailing fragile domestic reforms or provoking a wider conflict before winter. Yet the absence of retaliation does not signal weakness; it may reflect strategic patience. Meanwhile, farmers in the south continue tending olive groves under the shadow of drones, and schoolchildren rehearse evacuation drills between lessons. The ceasefire may hold on paper, but on the ground, border communities live in a state of suspended dread.
Diplomats in Beirut and Geneva continue to urge both sides to honor the ceasefire in full not selectively. The path to stability, they argue, runs through Israel’s complete withdrawal and Lebanon’s assertion of state authority over all armed groups. Until then, sporadic strikes and flyovers will keep southern villages in a cycle of anxiety. Yet amid the uncertainty, there are flickers of resolve: municipal councils coordinating civil defense, women’s cooperatives rebuilding damaged homes, and youth groups documenting ceasefire violations through citizen journalism. This grassroots resilience offers a counter-narrative to the drums of war one rooted in dignity, not destruction.
The November 2024 agreement was hailed as a breakthrough but agreements without enforcement are just words on paper. As long as Israeli troops occupy Lebanese soil and Hezbollah retains parallel military power, the ceasefire remains a temporary pause, not a permanent solution. International monitors have called for renewed verification mechanisms, but political will is thin. For now, the people of southern Lebanon endure, watching the skies and waiting. They remember past wars. They know silence can be louder than bombs.
Monday’s airstrikes may not have caused immediate bloodshed, but they deepened a wound that never fully healed. Trust, once broken, is harder to rebuild than infrastructure. Without full compliance from both sides Israeli withdrawal and Hezbollah disarmament the ceasefire will keep fraying at the edges until it snaps. In the olive groves of Nabatieh, the wind carries the scent of earth and unease. Children look up not in wonder, but in warning. And somewhere, a grandfather whispers to his grandson: “Peace isn’t the absence of war. It’s the presence of justice.” Until then, we plant trees and watch the sky.
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