Israel resumes strikes in southern Lebanon as ceasefire collapses, residents despair

The ceasefire that was supposed to bring relief to southern Lebanon has fractured into something worse than silence—it has become a cover for continued destruction. On Thursday, Israeli strikes wounded at least eight people across the region, and the military issued its first forced evacuation order in weeks, directing residents of al-Mansouri to leave their homes. For families already displaced by months of conflict, the order felt like confirmation of what they had begun to suspect: the agreement signed in June was never meant to protect them.

Al-Mansouri sits outside the territory Israel claims to occupy, yet the evacuation order came anyway. Yousef Shehemi, mayor of the neighboring town of Majdal Zoun, put it plainly to journalists: Israel operates without boundaries. They strike where they choose. They have not honored the ceasefire in any meaningful sense. On Thursday afternoon, families who had fled the town gathered at its edges, waiting for word that it was safe to return—a wait that stretched on with no clear answer.

What residents witnessed from those gathering points was systematic erasure. Israeli forces demolished homes and set fires to farmland. Olive groves burned. The destruction accumulated visibly, day after day, while Lebanese officials remained absent from the scene. Abu Rached, a resident of Majdal Zoun, voiced the frustration that was spreading through the region: the army could not even maintain a presence in al-Mansouri anymore, yet the government negotiators in Rome spoke of frameworks and pilot zones as though the ground beneath those words still existed. Where were the officials? he asked. What were they doing?

The negotiations themselves had resumed earlier in the week in Rome, where Lebanese and Israeli representatives discussed a framework meant to secure Israeli withdrawal once Hezbollah disarmed. The agreement outlined "pilot zones"—areas Israel would vacate so the Lebanese army could move in and ensure no weapons remained outside state control. In theory, this would allow displaced families to return home. In practice, no significant Israeli withdrawal had occurred. Hezbollah, which was not part of the talks, had publicly rejected the deal. The framework existed on paper while the military campaign continued on the ground.

The recent escalation began after an explosive device killed two Israeli soldiers earlier in the week. It remained unclear whether the device had been planted before or after the ceasefire took effect. Hezbollah did not claim responsibility. The Israeli response, however, was immediate and widespread. Strikes concentrated on al-Mansouri but spread beyond it. In Burj Shemali, further north, a residential home was hit—the first attack on that town since June. Almaza Hazim, a resident, described the sequence of terror: a neighbor screaming from the blast, residents running to help, injuries mounting, then another strike destroying the house entirely.

Critics have begun describing the military campaign as ethnic cleansing. The systematic nature of the destruction—the demolitions, the fires set to agricultural land, the forced evacuations—suggested something more deliberate than tactical strikes. Yet the region had experienced relative quiet over recent months, enough that some residents had begun to believe the worst might be over. That belief evaporated this week. The ceasefire, it became clear, had never truly stopped the war. It had only changed its rhythm, allowing just enough time for people to hope before the strikes resumed.