Israeli Strike Kills 13 Relatives In Tyre As Lebanon Ceasefire Begins

A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon came into effect after a 10-day truce, but in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre the final minutes before the halt brought another strike that killed members of a family and left one man searching for what remained.

Vijesti.me reported that Hassan Abu Khalil, 36, was the sole survivor after an Israeli strike late Thursday killed 13 of his relatives, with rescuers still searching for missing family members under rubble.

Al Jazeera

Reuters quoted Abu Khalil watching an excavator dig through crushed concrete, saying, "More than 13 members of my family are missing in this building under the rubble. What now, Israel? Just before the ceasefire, it was one massacre after another against us."

He also told Reuters, "I heard a very loud bang, and when I returned to the neighborhood, I found this," as rescue teams later pulled 13 bodies and rescued 35 injured people from the rubble, while 15 people were still missing.

The Taipei Times described how, minutes before the ceasefire came into effect at midnight, Israeli strikes in Tyre killed at least 13 people and destroyed six residential buildings, citing a city official.

Al Jazeera, meanwhile, described a different Tyre scene after the ceasefire, where an 80-year-old grandfather was reunited with his son and grandchildren, after his family had been displaced by the Israeli army since March 2.

Together, the accounts show that even as displaced families began moving, the war’s last moments in Tyre still produced fatalities and missing people under debris.

As the truce took hold, thousands of displaced Lebanese civilians moved toward home, but the return was shaped by damaged infrastructure, warnings from Israeli officials, and the continued presence of troops and restrictions.

The National described the main road to southern Lebanon as choked with traffic on Friday, with displaced families traveling back home weeks after fleeing Israeli strikes, defying official warnings over the fragile ceasefire.

Al Jazeera

It said the 10-day truce between Israel and Lebanon took effect after more than six weeks of fighting that left more than 2,000 people dead in Lebanon and displaced more than one million, and it described reporters stuck in long queues of cars with families piled high with mattresses and belongings.

The National said some traveled in lorries packed with all they owned, and it described young men handing out water along the motorway as families endured hours-long delays.

It reported that people began their journeys before dawn, seen walking or riding scooters across the Qasmiyeh Bridge near Tyre, the only remaining crossing in the western region linking southern Lebanon to the rest of the country.

The bridge had been hit hours before the ceasefire and was hastily patched up, while the Israeli military had told residents not to return south of the Litani River, 30km away from the Lebanon-Israel border.

Telegraph India similarly described people returning to devastated towns and neighbourhoods on Friday, with many finding homes destroyed or uninhabitable and hesitant to stay for fear a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel could unravel.

It also reported that the war killed more than 2,100 people in Lebanon and forced some 1.2 million from their homes, according to Lebanese authorities, and it described Israel destroying all the bridges over the Litani during the war, blowing up the one at Qasmiyeh on Thursday.

In this picture of movement, the ceasefire was not a clean break from the conflict, but a narrow window for families to cross damaged routes and test whether they could live where they had fled.

The ceasefire’s terms and the political framework around it were described as tightly linked to US efforts and to the question of Hezbollah’s role, with multiple sources quoting officials and detailing conditions for what could happen next.

The Taipei Times reported that the ceasefire was brokered under pressure from US President Donald Trump and that, under the terms, Israel reserves the right to continue targeting Hezbollah to prevent “planned, imminent or ongoing attacks.”

It said the ceasefire agreement also included maintaining a 10km security zone along the border in southern Lebanon, and it quoted Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz saying the area stretching from this security zone north to the Litani River had not yet been “cleared of terrorists and weapons.”

Katz warned, "If the fighting resumes, those residents who return to the security zone will have to be evacuated to allow completion of the mission," as the article described the risk of renewed operations.

Telegraph India added that the ceasefire agreement does not demand Israel withdraw troops occupying parts of the south and that Hezbollah maintains "the right to resist," while it described Hezbollah’s position that it maintains its finger “on the trigger” in the event of any Israeli violations.

It also reported that Trump said Lebanon had agreed to "take care of Hezbollah" and that Netanyahu said Israel's main demand remained that Hezbollah must be dismantled.

Al Jazeera’s account of displacement since March 2 also provided a timeline for how long families had been forced to leave, and it said the family had been displaced by the Israeli army since March 2, among the 1.2 million Lebanese made to leave their homes.

Across the sources, the ceasefire was presented not as a full end to hostilities but as a conditional pause with explicit security zones, continued targeting rights, and competing demands over Hezbollah’s disarmament and withdrawal of forces.

As families traveled back, the sources captured contrasting emotions—hope, exhaustion, and grief—alongside direct quotes from people on the move and from officials shaping the political narrative.

The Taipei Times described some returnees treating the short truce as hope, quoting 37-year-old Amani Atrash saying, “Our feelings are indescribable, pride and victory,” and adding that she hoped the truce would be extended.

Haaretz

It also quoted 31-year-old Ofir Ben-Ari from Israel, saying, “I’ve got a three-year-old girl and a two-month-old baby, and the whole time we’ve just not left the house because you never know when there’ll be a rocket attack,” and she added, “It’s been crazy, but I think things will be quiet now and I’ll be able to take my daughter to the park.”

The National offered a different tone through a resident of southern Lebanon, with a woman holding a boot out of her car window saying, “I’m going to Ayta Al Shaab, if I can get to it,” and explaining that the flowers represented her son, Ali Abdelnabi, a doctor and member of Hezbollah killed weeks ago as the Israeli military advanced into the village.

The National quoted her as saying, “The living are tired,” and “And the dead are at peace.”

It also included a man driving south with his wife and three children who said, “We’ll cross the bridge. We’ll find a way. And if we die, we’ll die together,” while also lamenting, “Last year, the Israelis were occupying five points in south Lebanon,

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