David GrittenAnd
Helene Sullivan
Israel and Lebanon agreed to renew their fragile ceasefire and create a number of “pilot” safe zones inside Lebanon in which Hezbollah members would be banned, the US State Department announced.
A joint declaration said the deal was “contingent on a complete cessation” of attacks by the Iran-backed Hezbollah armed group, among other conditions.
The three countries also “rejected any attempt, on the part of a state or non-state actor, to take the future Lebanon hostage”.
The deal was announced in Washington on Wednesday, after Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel.
Lebanese state media reported that Israeli strikes continued in southern Lebanon on Thursday, with at least one strike causing casualties.
Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militia, political party and social movement, is the most powerful group in Lebanon. With Iranian support, it built an armed force more formidable than the Lebanese army and fought a series of conflicts with Israel. It is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel and many other countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States.
The agreement between Israel and Lebanon, concluded after a fourth round of talks under American mediation, depends on “the evacuation of all [Hezbollah] terrorists” from an area between the Israeli border and the Litani River, approximately 30 km (19 miles) to the north, which is currently occupied by Israeli ground forces.
He said the United States would help create “pilot zones in which the Lebanese armed forces would take exclusive control of the territory, to the exclusion of all non-state actors.”
It included no maps showing where the pilot areas would be located, nor any explanation of how they might work in practice.
The deal follows a partial ceasefire announced Monday, which Lebanon said would allow Israel to refrain from bombing the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in exchange for Hezbollah not attacking Israel.
Representatives of the two countries will meet again on June 22 to continue discussions “with a view to reaching a comprehensive agreement.”
Hezbollah told the BBC it would make its comments officially in due course.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the deal a “grave mistake,” saying it would allow Hezbollah to “become stronger.”
Lebanon was drawn into the war between the United States, Israel and Iran on March 2, when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel in retaliation for an Israeli strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader. Israel responded with an air campaign across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south.
A U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon on April 16 failed to end the fighting, and last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to step up strikes against Hezbollah and advance deeper into Lebanon in response to drone and rocket attacks on communities in northern Israel.
At least 3,516 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry. Its figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The UN says more than a million people have also registered as displaced in Lebanon, where Israeli evacuation orders cover more than an eighth of the country.
Israel says 26 of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians were killed on both sides of the border during the war.
Lebanese media reported Israeli strikes in the south of the country on Wednesday.
The Health Ministry said four Syrians and two Palestinians were killed in a strike in the al-Housh area, just south of the coastal city of Tyre.
The ministry also said two paramedics were killed and a third seriously injured when Israeli forces “directly targeted an ambulance” in the Chehour area, located about 14 kilometers to the east. The ambulance belonged to the Risala scouts association, affiliated with the Amal movement, an ally of Hezbollah.
The ministry accused the Israeli military of “showing contempt for international humanitarian law,” which specifically protects medical personnel.
At least 128 paramedics and health workers have been killed in Israeli attacks on ambulances and medical facilities over the past three months, according to the ministry.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. In the past, he has claimed that ambulances were used for military purposes, without providing any evidence.
The Lebanese army, for its part, said one of its soldiers was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the road between Nabatieh and Kfar Tebnit, about 27 km northeast of Tyre. The Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) reported that his motorcycle was targeted by a drone.
The army said two other Lebanese soldiers were injured in another Israeli strike on their vehicle on the road between Deir Zahrani and Nabatieh.
He denounced what he called “a series of deliberate strikes targeting army personnel, vehicles and positions” by Israeli forces.
ANI also reported an Israeli strike on a car on the busy coastal highway in the Khaldeh region, just south of Beirut. It did not report any casualties, but security sources told the Reuters news agency that two people were injured.
This is the closest strike to the capital since the announcement of the partial ceasefire.
Also on Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had intercepted a “hostile aircraft” that crossed the border near the areas of Manara and Kiryat Shmona, about 15 km south of Nabatieh, as well as two projectiles that crossed into the neighboring region of Misgav Am.
The army did not immediately blame Hezbollah, but the group later said that “in response to the Israeli enemy army’s violation of the ceasefire,” its fighters targeted “a gathering of Israeli enemy army soldiers” in northern Israel with a barrage of rockets.
Israeli leaders have warned that their military will resume strikes on Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, if the group launches cross-border attacks against communities in northern Israel.
According to the Lebanese government, the partial ceasefire agreed on Monday stipulates that “Israel will not launch a large offensive on Beirut in exchange for Hezbollah refraining from launching attacks against Israel.”
The government said Hezbollah had confirmed its acceptance, but a member of the group’s political council, Mahmoud Qamati, told the BBC on Tuesday: “There was no ceasefire agreement, just the protection of Dahieh.”
Qamati also insisted that Hezbollah would not respect any of the commitments made during the Lebanese-Israeli talks in Washington.
“We believe that these negotiations do not concern us nor do we recognize their conclusions or decisions, because we rejected them in principle,” he said.
Trump is reportedly concerned that further escalation in Lebanon could jeopardize a broader agreement to end the war between the United States, Israel and Iran.
Iran has warned the United States that any regional ceasefire must include Lebanon.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on Wednesday that if Israeli aggression against Beirut continued, its armed forces would be “fully prepared” to resume war, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.