Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed Wednesday that the IDF will not withdraw from its southern Lebanon security zone, “even if there is an American demand,” while adding there was no such demand at this time. The fighting in Lebanon remains a key flashpoint in wider US-Iran negotiations. A memorandum of understanding that halted a war between the US and Iran also imposed a ceasefire in the fight between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But Israeli leaders assert that forces will stay put until the threat from the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah has ended. Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the war by attacking northern Israel in March.
“The IDF is prepared… and we are not retreating,” Katz said in an onstage interview at the Muni Expo conference for local officials in Tel Aviv. “We announced that in any case we are not withdrawing.” Israel controls a security zone in southern Lebanon that stretches across the entire length of the shared border, and extends up to 10 kilometers (six miles) into Lebanese territory, in some areas crossing the Litani River and reaching the outskirts of Nabatieh. Katz said that “200,000 [Lebanese] residents will not return [to the homes they evacuated]. Because what happened in the past in security zones where there was also a civilian population [present] was roadside bombs and attacks against the soldiers, and therefore we will not allow that.”
Iran has repeatedly tied a ceasefire in Lebanon to its understanding with the US. “For us, a ceasefire in Lebanon is as important as a ceasefire in Iran, and further, an end to the war in Lebanon is as important as an end to the war in Iran,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in Baku during a meeting of the Parliamentary Union of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Meanwhile, the IDF said two Hezbollah gunmen were targeted in an Israeli strike Wednesday after being spotted near troops in southern Lebanon. (Read More)
