World
Lebanese PM plants flag in southern village, hailing start of ‘complete Israeli withdrawal’
Lebanon’s prime minister on Wednesday visited a battered southern village that was vacated by Israeli troops, planting a Lebanese flag at the scene and declaring that it marked the beginning of a complete Israeli withdrawal
Nawaf Salam’s appearance in Zawtar Al-Gharbiya came a day after President Joseph Aoun’s landmark White House meeting with US President Donald Trump, who promised to back the Lebanese government in its bid to claim state control across the country.
Lebanon and Israel in late June signed an agreement that called for the Lebanese military to deploy in areas in southern Lebanon where the Hezbollah terror group had a military presence and influence, and for Israel to withdraw from its declared security zone after having occupied dozens of villages.
Both sides later agreed on a pilot zone made up of a series of villages to test the implementation of the agreement. While Israeli troops have struck and conducted ground operations in those areas, they have not occupied them, but the Lebanese army has also not been there in large numbers.
The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah started March 2, after the Lebanese terror group fired rockets into Israel in to support Iran, its main backer. In response, Israel launched an aerial campaign and ground invasion in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s top political leadership criticized Hezbollah for dragging the country into another war, but also condemned Israel for its strikes and ground invasion.
Salam, alongside Lebanon’s defense minister and senior military officials, pitched a Lebanese flag near a destroyed building in the town, vowing the government will start rebuilding destroyed homes and infrastructure.
“We have insisted since the beginning that our goal is the complete Israeli withdrawal from all our territory,” Salam said. “What we are seeing today is just the beginning, but we remain determined and steadfast, and will continue to mobilize all political and diplomatic efforts to secure a full withdrawal from all of Lebanese territory.”
Hezbollah has condemned the government for holding direct talks with Israel and rejected the agreement, but has not tried to sabotage it through military means. Its leadership believes Israel cannot be pressured to withdraw its troops by diplomatic means only, and that Lebanon lacks the leverage of its key ally Iran in negotiations.
Trump, in his meeting with Aoun, did not speak much about the pilot zone going into its implementation phase, but pledged to support Lebanon without going into details.
Aoun and the Lebanese government have urged the international community to invest in the country and its army to help rebuild its infrastructure and military capacity.
Following the meeting, Aoun told US congressmembers and Trump administration officials that Lebanon can disarm Hezbollah, but that Israel’s military must pull out of the south of the country for it to happen, the Lebanese president’s office said.
Speaking at a dinner in his honor hosted by Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad, Aoun says that his country cannot be secure or united until it is “one state with one army that protects all Lebanese.”
“Hezbollah’s weapons can be disarmed if we are honest about what it truly requires,” he continued, “namely, the removal of the occupation and the army taking full control.”
Israeli officials have expressed skepticism that Lebanon’s armed forces are strong enough to disarm Hezbollah by force on their own, and say IDF troops are needed in the south to provide a buffer zone keeping the Iran-backed terror group away from its border.
During the meeting with Trump, Aoun, a former army commander, said the military was “the backbone of security and stability” and the country’s most trusted institution.
Asked whether the US would provide assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces on disarming Hezbollah, Trump was noncommittal, saying that he would be discussing the matter with Aoun privately.
More than a million Lebanese have been displaced by Israel’s military campaign since the war broke out in March.
More than 4,300 people have been killed, according to Lebanese authorities, which do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel said late last month it had killed at least 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force.
Thirty-eight IDF soldiers and one Defense Ministry civilian contractor have been killed in southern Lebanon. Two civilians were also killed by Hezbollah rockets, and an Israeli civilian was mistakenly killed in the north by Israeli artillery shelling.
