The Lebanese military announced that it completed an important step on Thursday in creating the conditions for sustained peace between itself and Israel, while officials in Jerusalem said it was just an “encouraging” start.
“The army confirms that its plan to restrict weapons has entered an advanced stage, after achieving the goals of the first phase effectively and tangibly on the ground,” the Lebanese Armed Forces said in a statement, noting that there is more work to be done regarding efforts to safely clear unexploded ordnance and tunnels. The statement did not mention Hezbollah by name.
Based on the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement, the LAF is expected to disarm and remove Hezbollah weapons from the area between Lebanon’s southern border, which it shares with Israel, and the Litani River, which is about 20 miles north of that border. The space should serve as a buffer zone if carried out correctly.
Israeli officials expressed skepticism at the supposed progress, given that Hezbollah largely refused to disarm even after the 2024 ceasefire deal with Israel.
“The ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States between Israel and Lebanon states clearly, Hezbollah must be fully disarmed. This is imperative for Israel’s security and Lebanon’s future,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “Efforts made toward this end by the Lebanese Government and the Lebanese Armed Forces are an encouraging beginning, but they are far from sufficient, as evidenced by Hezbollah’s efforts to rearm and rebuild its terror infrastructure with Iranian support.”
Hezbollah began firing projectiles into northern Israel a day after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack rocked the region, and Israel responded at the time. However, Israel did not begin its ground invasion into southern Lebanon until the following fall.
Israeli officials have long said that if the LAF is not able to disarm Hezbollah, they maintain the option of restarting its operations to do it themselves. They have continued limited strikes targeting Hezbollah operatives and efforts for them to rebuild their arsenal.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry added, “Despite the statements published today in Lebanon, the facts remain that extensive Hezbollah military infrastructure still exists south of the Litani River. The goal of disarming Hezbollah in southern Lebanon remains far from being achieved.”
Hezbollah receives significant support from Tehran for its actions against Israel, which is also trying to reconstitute its ballistic missile arsenal following the short but historic 12-day war between Jerusalem and Tehran.
“Hezbollah continues to rearm with the support of Iran, whose foreign minister is arriving today for a visit to Lebanon,” the foreign ministry continued. “Hezbollah is rearming faster than it is being disarmed.”
President Donald Trump recently threatened Iranian leaders over possible crackdowns on protests.
“If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump said.
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The Trump administration has been able to negotiate several fragile peace deals that could collapse due to the parties involved, even as they try to push forward with their implementation.
“We are a we are at a patchwork of very fragile ceasefire agreements that could potentially collapse over the coming months, and not due to the lack of effort in the United States, which has rather been extraordinary in terms of what’s been achieved, but the fact that the threat actors involved, namely Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah and Iran and the militias in Iraq are failing to either comply or acquiesce to us and Israeli policy demands that there’s no longer that security threat in the region that is going to come to a head at some point in the coming months,” Alex Plitsas, an expert with the Atlantic Council, told the Washington Examiner.
