The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has held overnight despite Israeli air strikes hitting targets in southern Lebanon. British diplomats are treading carefully, urging restraint from both sides as the region teeters on a knife's edge. The strikes, which Israel says were in response to a rocket attack on the Golan Heights, have not derailed the truce brokered by the United Nations and the United States.
But for the people of south Lebanon, the boom of explosions is a brutal reminder that peace remains elusive. One resident, Umm Ali, told me: 'We are used to this. The quiet is never real quiet.
' The UK Foreign Office has issued a statement calling for 'maximum restraint' and a return to the ceasefire terms. But with the conflict in Gaza still raging, any spark could ignite a wider war. For British families with loved ones in the region, it is a nerve-wracking wait.
The price of instability is not just measured in missiles but in the anxiety that gnaws at kitchen tables from London to Manchester. As one diplomat put it off the record: 'We are holding our breath.
