BEIRUT: The Zionist entity said it conducted an air strike on a Hezbollah weapons facility on Thursday, the first since a ceasefire in the war in Lebanon took effect. The truce, which came into force on Wednesday, seeks to end a war that has killed thousands in Lebanon and sparked mass displacements.

Lebanon deployed troops and tanks on Thursday across the country’s south, where Hezbollah has long held sway, where only the army and UN peacekeepers are to maintain a presence under the terms of the ceasefire. Nazih Eid, mayor of Baysariyeh in south Lebanon, told AFP a strike had hit an area of his town. “They targeted a forested area not accessible to civilians,” he said.

The deal to end the war in Lebanon was brokered by the United States and France. Under the agreement, Zionist troops will hold their positions but “a 60-day period will commence in which the Lebanese military and security forces will begin their deployment towards the south”, a US official told reporters on condition of anonymity. Then, the Zionist entity should begin a phased withdrawal without a vacuum forming that Hezbollah or others could rush into, the official said. Zionist and Lebanese militaries have both called on residents of

frontline villages to avoid returning home immediately. Earlier on Thursday, Zionist fire wounded two people in a border village, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency. For the most part, however, the ceasefire appeared to be holding.

A Lebanese army source said its forces were “conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints” south of the Litani River without advancing into areas where Zionist forces were still present. The Zionist army on Thursday announced a nighttime curfew for areas south of the river, which are located near the border.

While there was joy around Lebanon that the war has ended, the country faces a long recovery. Tens of thousands of Lebanese who fled their homes during the war have headed back to their towns and villages, only to find them devastated. “Despite all the destruction and the sorrow, we are happy to be back,” said Umm Mohammed Bzeih, a widow who fled the southern village of Zibqin with her four children two months ago. In the border village of Qlayaa, residents threw rice and flowers to celebrate the arrival of Lebanese soldiers.

On Thursday, there was a glimmer of hope as the official National News Agency reported parliament would meet to elect a president on Jan 9, following a two-year vacuum. Hezbollah proclaimed on Wednesday that it had achieved “victory” in the war against the Zionist entity, after the truce took effect. It also said that its fighters would “remain in total readiness to deal with the (Zionist) enemy’s ambitions and its attacks”.

Meanwhile, Zionist military strikes killed at least 21 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up their bombardment of central areas and tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the enclave. “I hope a ceasefire will happen like it did in Lebanon... I just want to take my children to see my land, my house, to see what they did to us, I want to live in safety,” said Amal Abu Hmeid, a displaced woman in Gaza.

On Thursday, six people were killed in two separate airstrikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when a Zionist strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south, medics said. In Nuseirat, one of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, Zionist planes carried out several airstrikes, destroying a multi-storey building and hitting roads outside mosques. At least 11 people were killed in those strikes, according to health officials at Al-Awda Hospital in the camp.

They said in a statement that dozens of families were trapped in their homes after some tanks advanced from the northern area of the camp and that ambulance vehicles were unable to reach them because of continued tank fire. In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northwest area of the city, residents said.

In Syria, jihadist fighters cut the Damascus to Aleppo highway on Thursday during an offensive that a monitor says killed around 200, including civilians hit by Russian air force strikes. A day earlier, jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched a surprise attack on government-held areas of northern Aleppo province, triggering the fiercest fighting in years, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The toll in ongoing battles “has risen to 182, including 102 fighters from HTS”, 19 from allied factions “and 61 regime forces and allied groups”, said the Observatory. “Russian air strikes on the Aleppo countryside killed 19 civilians on Thursday,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, adding that another civilian had been killed in Syrian army shelling a day earlier.

A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria on Thursday during fighting between Syrian government forces and jihadists, an Iranian news agency reported. “General Kioumars Pourhashemi, one of Iran’s senior advisers in Aleppo, was killed in an attack carried out by takfiri terrorist mercenaries,” Tasnim news agency reported.

Russia is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and first intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, turning the momentum of the conflict in favor of the president, whose forces once only controlled a fifth of the country. HTS and its allied factions, including groups backed by neighboring Turkey, “cut off the Damascus-Aleppo international M5 highway... in addition to controlling the junction between the M4 and M5 highways,” said the Britain-based monitor.

Some of the clashes, which are happening in an area straddling Idlib and Aleppo provinces, are less than 10 km southwest of the outskirts of Aleppo city. “This operation aims to repel the sources of fire of the criminal enemy from the frontlines,” said Mohamed Bashir, who heads HTS’ so-called “Salvation Government”, during a press conference.

Analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the rebels were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo, which Russian and Syrian government airstrikes against rebel areas has been preparing for”. With some Turkey-backed factions joining the offensive, he said “Ankara is sending a message to both Damascus and Moscow to back down from their military efforts in northwest Syria,” he said. – Agencies