US brokers Lebanon-Israel framework agreement after days of talks
Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged "a lot of work" remains.
WASHINGTON — A US-brokered agreement on Friday sets the stage for Israel to transfer control of two areas in southern Lebanon to the Lebanese military.
The deal followed four days of talks at the State Department centered on creating "pilot zones" in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops would gradually hand over the territory they occupied during the ongoing war to the Lebanese military.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the trilateral framework as a “first step” toward peace and security after months of conflict.
“There's a lot of work ahead,” Rubio said at the signing ceremony in Washington. “Today we've taken the first step, and what will be a difficult journey, without a doubt, but an important and an essential and a necessary one.”
Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh signed the agreement for their respective countries. Signing for the United States was State Department Counselor Dan Holler.
The State Department did not immediately release the text of the framework, and Rubio offered no specifics in his prepared remarks.
The Lebanese Embassy in Washington said in a statement that the framework “provides for the implementation of two pilot areas involving Israeli withdrawal, deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and the disarmament of non-state armed groups."
In a video statement issued after the signing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touted that the deal would allow Israel to remain in the buffer zone it created in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon was dragged back into war on March 2 when Hezbollah fired at Israel in solidarity with its patron, Iran. Israel responded with a wave of airstrikes and a ground operation in southern Lebanon that killed more than 4,000 Lebanese and displaced over 1.2 million others. More than 30 Israelis have died in the conflict, mostly soldiers.
The fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group has threatened to derail a US-Iran framework agreement calling for an end to military operations “on all fronts, including Lebanon.”
Shortly before negotiators convened Friday, Israel carried out an air raid on the outskirts of Nabatieh al-Fawqa and dropped leaflets ordering evacuations from the southern town of Mansouri, according to Lebanese news outlets.
Hezbollah is not part of the talks and has pressed the Lebanese government to withdraw from them. On Friday, the militant group’s leader, Naim Qassem, demanded Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon “unconditionally.”
After what she described as a “long and difficult” meeting, Hamadeh said the resulting framework was a “first step on the road to restoring Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“We put the train back on the tracks and it’s running in the right direction,” Leiter said at the signing. “The final destination: peace between our two countries.”
This developing story has been updated since initial publication.
