Hezbollah politician hopes truce will continue

A general view shows the Lebanese village of Blida as seen from Mhaibib village, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon November 28, 2023. REUTERS/Aziz Taher reuters_tickers

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A senior Hezbollah politician said on Tuesday he hoped a truce would continue and his Iran-backed group had started paying compensation to people who had suffered losses during weeks of Israeli strikes in south Lebanon.

Following the start of the Hamas-Israel war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in their worst hostilities since 2006, with Hezbollah attacking Israeli positions at the border and Israel launching air and artillery strikes.

But the cross-border violence has ceased since Hamas – a Hezbollah ally – and Israel reached a temporary truce on Friday.

“God willing, the truce will continue,” senior Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said after a meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

The violence at the Israel-Lebanese border has forced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the frontier to flee their homes.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed around 100 people – 80 of them Hezbollah fighters. Hostilities spiralled following the Oct. 7 Hamas raid from the Gaza Strip into Israel, setting off a conflict that spread around the region.

Citing a Hezbollah survey of damage done by Israeli attacks in Lebanon, Fadlallah said 37 residential buildings had been totally destroyed and 11 more completely burned. Another 1,500 homes across the south had suffered varying degrees of damage.

Fadlallah said Mikati had agreed the government would pay compensation, including for destroyed cars and olive groves. This would be separate from compensation to be paid by Hezbollah, he added.

“It is true that we, in Hezbollah, began paying compensation … but this does not mean at all that the government is not concerned, indeed it is concerned, and (Mikati) was very responsive,” Fadlallah said.

Hezbollah said it spent more than $300 million on compensation and reconstruction following the 2006 war, during which Israeli air strikes laid waste to swathes of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut.

(Writing by Tom Perry, editing by Ed Osmond)