Hezbollah politician hopes truce will continue

A senior Hezbollah politician said today he hoped a truce would continue, adding that the group had started paying compensation to people who had suffered losses during weeks of Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, Reuters reports.

Since 7 October, Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in their worst hostilities since 2006 as a result of Israel’s genocidal bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

But the cross-border violence has ceased since Hamas 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.

READ: Israel strike kills 5 Hezbollah fighters including son of senior leader

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 southern suburbs of Beirut.