U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined Israel and Lebanon’s ambassadors to the U.S. Friday to announce a framework agreement that was described as a primary step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The officials didn’t share details on the agreement, which doesn’t include Hezbollah and prompted considered one of the group’s officials in Lebanon to warn of civil war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said that the framework would allow Lebanese forces to eventually take control of territory from Israel’s military.
The agreement was signed in front of Rubio in Washington by Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to america, and Nada Hamadeh, the Lebanese ambassador to america.
Hamadeh said the framework “is a primary step on the road to restoring Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity, securing a everlasting and final cessation of hostilities, enabling our people to return to their land and allowing all Lebanese to live in peace, security and prosperity.”
Leiter said the ultimate destination of the framework is peace between the 2 countries.
“Real peace, where each countries will live in security, where Israel’s and Lebanon’s sovereignty will probably be respected, honored and guarded,” Leiter said. “On this performance-based trilateral framework agreement, Iran is out. Hezbollah is out. And the road to peace between Israel and Lebanon is in.”
The most recent conflict began when Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel days after Israel and the U.S. launched their war on Iran on Feb. 28. Israel invaded Lebanon and has expanded its control.
The talks between Israel and Lebanon were separate from the interim deal that was signed last week by the leaders of the U.S. and Iran to finish the fighting within the Islamic Republic. That agreement set a 60-day period for negotiations on key issues, including the long run of Tehran’s nuclear program amid concerns that Iran wants to make use of it for military purposes, a claim the country denies.
The Lebanese government had been wary of getting Iran negotiate on its behalf, and Lebanon launched its own direct negotiations with Israel after the outbreak of the newest Israel-Hezbollah war. Hezbollah was not a part of the talks, which resulted in several ceasefire agreements that were never implemented on the bottom.
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Iran, meanwhile, insisted that its own agreement with the U.S. explicitly include a ceasefire in Lebanon. The primary halt in fighting in Lebanon since March coincided with the start of U.S.-Iran talks in Switzerland.
Hassan Fadlallah, a member of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, reiterated the group’s stance on Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV that it rejects Lebanon’s direct negotiations with Israel and that it’s going to not hand over its weapons.
Fadlallah said Lebanese authorities “is not going to have the opportunity to implement the agreement signed in Washington unless they go, with American support, to civil war.” He also called the agreement in Washington “an try to derail the Islamabad process,” referring to the U.S.-Iran negotiations.
In a press release, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun thanked the Trump administration and the Lebanese negotiating team and said Friday’s agreement will probably be a “first step” toward allowing the Lebanese displaced by the war “to return to their fully liberated land and to their homes” and to live “with their heads held high, under the sovereignty of a Lebanese state that has no partner in its sovereignty over its land and other people.”
He didn’t share details of the pact.
Greater than 4,000 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes since March. No less than 37 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon or northern Israel throughout the fighting.
A lull earlier this week in fire between Israeli and Hezbollah forces began to indicate cracks after Israel said it targeted Hezbollah militants in several strikes across southern Lebanon.
Lebanese officials have said that securing a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon is a top priority for them within the negotiations, while Israeli officials have prioritized the disarmament of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Aoun had told a visiting British parliamentary delegation on Wednesday that a proposal for “pilot zones” where the Lebanese army is purported to take exclusive control of the territory as Israeli troops will withdraw was “under discussion pending approval from the Israeli side.” He reiterated that the Israel-Lebanon negotiations in Washington are separate from what emerged from from the Iran-U.S. talks in Switzerland.
An Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media said Israel’s direct negotiations with Lebanon include discussions in regards to the redeployment of Israeli forces after southern Lebanon is cleared of Hezbollah infrastructure and Hezbollah has disarmed.
Hezbollah is unlikely to comply with any plan that will include its disarmament throughout the country. The group has maintained that it is just required by previous agreements and U.N. resolutions to disarm in the realm south of the Litani River, near Lebanon’s border with Israel.
Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, said in a video on Friday that the framework is a “great achievement” for Israel.
“Crucial thing, before everything, is that Israel will remain in the safety zone in southern Lebanon,” he said. “It is a major achievement, and we are going to maintain it so long as Hezbollah has not been disarmed and so long as it continues to pose a threat to the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu also said that Israel is allowing the Lebanese army to start preparing to take control of territory.
“We’re establishing two pilot zones, each based on the advice of the IDF,” he said. “The primary is entirely outside the safety zone and south of the Litani River. The second is north of the Litani.”
On Wednesday, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun told a visiting British parliamentary delegation that a proposal for “pilot zones” where the Lebanese army is purported to take exclusive control of the territory as Israeli troops will withdraw was “under discussion pending approval from the Israeli side.”
Sewell reported from Beirut. Lidman reported from Tel Aviv. Associated Press writers Koral Saeed in Herzliya, Israel, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.
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