Israeli Forces Kill at Least 24 People Trying to Go Home in Southern Lebanon

Israeli forces killed at least 24 Lebanese and injured more than 130 others as they tried to return to their homes in occupied southern Lebanon, the country's Ministry of Public Health said Monday.

The ministry said in a statement that the dead include six women. One Lebanese soldier was also reportedly killed. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops opened fire on residents desperate to go home after the 60-day deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon expired.

The Washington Post reported Monday that an IDF spokesperson claimed that Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah sent "agitators" into the southern part of the country in a bid to inflame tensions. No evidence was provided to support the claim.

IDF Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned Lebanese on Sunday that, while Israeli forces "do not intend to target you... at this stage you are prohibited from returning to your homes... until further notice," and that "anyone who moves south" of an Israeli-designated line along the Litani River "puts themselves at risk." Scores of villages are located south of the IDF "red line."

The White House said Sunday that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to an extension of the deadline for Israel's withdrawal from the country, with IDF troops now having until February 18 to leave. Lebanese and international media reported several Israeli cease-fire violations since the extension was announced.

Last month, Amnesty Internationalcalled for a war crimes investigation into IDF airstrikes in Lebanon, as well as a suspension of arms transfers to Israel over its attacks on the country, and on Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank in Palestine.

Israeli forces—which had been attacking Lebanon since October 2023, when Hezbollah began launching rockets and other projectiles at targets in northern Israel in solidarity with Gaza—initiated a major bombing campaign and invasion of the northern neighbor last October 1 that killed more than 4,000 people, wounded over 16,000 others, and forcibly displaced more than 1.2 million more, according to Lebanese officials.

Meanwhile in Gaza, where a fragile cease-fire took effect earlier this month, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly displaced by Israel's 15-month war on the coastal enclave—which local officials say has left around 170,000 people dead, maimed, or missing—are in the process of returning home to scenes of utter destruction.

Several Arab leaders including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah, and officials in Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi's government on Sunday condemned U.S. President Donald Trump's call for Jordan and Egypt to take "about a million-and-a-half" Palestinian refugees from Gaza after "we just clean out that whole thing," with some observers accusing the Republican of endorsing ethnic cleansing.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also called out Trump, saying Monday: "There is a name for this—ethnic cleansing—and it's a war crime. This outrageous idea should be condemned by every American."