BEIRUT (Dispatches) – On the outskirts of the southern Lebanese border village of Yaroun, residents stood atop a dirt barricade, looking down at their homes and olive groves. Below, Zionist troops waited, their snipers ready for anyone who dared to cross. 
An elderly woman, Fatima Jaafar, boldly climbed down from the barricade and was soon followed by a young man waving a Hezbollah flag. Seconds later, Zionist troops’ gunshots rang out, and the two rushed back, narrowly escaping the fire. 
Yaroun is one of several villages where Zionist troops remain stationed after the January 26 withdrawal deadline set by the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement. 
Despite the lingering presence of Zionist troops, many residents of villages in southern Lebanon are determined to return in defiance of Israeli orders.
Near the barricade in Yaroun, a group of people camped beside a roaring fire said they had been there for three days when Middle East Eye visited on Tuesday. 
One of them was a 51-year-old woman who asked to be referred to as Imm Hassan. “I have my house [in Yaroun]. I had chickens and goats. I was living a very happy life,” she told MEE.
“This is our land. When I die, my kids will come; my grandkids will come,” she said. “No one can leave their land, especially next to this neighbor who wants to take it over.”  
Like many from Yaroun, Imm Hassan holds U.S. citizenship and speaks in a crisp American accent. She says her heart is in Yaroun, the village of her ancestors and the place where she has lived most of her life. 
“Yaroun is a very special place, with very special nature,” Imm Hassan said, describing its bountiful farmland and “heavenly” forest of ancient oak trees, where she would often bring her goats to graze and picnic with her friends. 
But much of that land, she says, is now gone. “They’re trying to make a desert here, to make it inhabitable.”
An Israeli drone hovered above Imm Hassan as she spoke. She said it had been firing into the crowds, pointing to blackened spots on the ground where it had struck.
Later on Tuesday, Israeli sniper fire wounded six civilians attempting to enter Yaroun, as well as one Lebanese soldier, according to Mohammad Salman, a 28-year-old medic at the scene. He told MEE that the victims - some elderly and in critical condition - were shot in the faces, chest and back.
Other villages along the Lebanese border bore scenes similar to those in Yaroun. In Aitaroun, about a 15-minute drive from Yaroun, a group of women chanted “Israel out”. They stood behind a line of Lebanese soldiers and another dirt barricade, where Israeli troops remained stationed in their village.
Among them was 10-year-old Fatima Dau, dressed in the yellow and green of the Hezbollah flag. She stood with her three younger siblings, holding large photos of their father, who was a Hezbollah fighter killed in battle. They were waiting to retrieve his body.