Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00As of midnight, Israel has officially withdrawn from all the villages of southern Lebanon.
00:09So indeed, for the second time after the extension of the withdrawal date following the two-month
00:19ceasefire after the end of the war between Hezbollah and Israel, Israeli troops have
00:25left southern Lebanon overnight.
00:27They have left all of the border villages.
00:33People are expected to start going back to their villages within the next few hours.
00:37Some of the villages are already being cleared and checked by the Lebanese army for any potential
00:45leftovers, or any missiles, or any booby-trapped houses which were not yet exploded before
00:53allowing the people to start entering those villages.
00:57These villages are in a very bad infrastructure condition.
01:02Most of those villages don't have decent road infrastructure, water infrastructure, electricity
01:09infrastructure.
01:10There is lots of property damage in those villages.
01:16As someone I just called and informed me of the situation, the first scenes that we're
01:21seeing out of the village of Kfarkala are really similar to the scenes that we've seen
01:28in Gaza.
01:29So in the village of Kfarkala, for example, at least 90 percent of the village has been
01:37completely destroyed, with no roads that are even there on the ground.
01:41Now this is when it comes to the villages and the populated areas.
01:45Yet we are seeing that despite the fact that Israel has officially withdrawn out of all
01:49these villages, Israel has remained in five observation points or hills which are located
01:57close to those villages which were last evacuated.
02:00So yes, Israel has fully withdrawn from the villages in southern Lebanon, yet we're seeing
02:06Israeli military presence in hills close to those same villages inside Lebanese territory.
02:13So we have five hills in particular where Israel is planning to establish some sort
02:17of an observation site to overlook the Lebanese villages and in their own terms to protect
02:24the northern Israeli towns.
02:27Now this is something that the president of Lebanon, Joseph Owen, has mentioned explicitly
02:34that this is something that he will not accept and that he would be working diplomatically
02:38to make sure Israeli soldiers leave every piece of Lebanese territory as soon as possible.