Alexandra Sharp
Foreign Policy / January 24, 2025
[via email]
The Israeli security cabinet authorized the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) late Thursday to remain in some areas of southern Lebanon past the 60-day withdrawal deadline set to expire on Sunday. Under the terms of the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire agreement approved last November, both sides must fully remove all of their troops from the region by Jan. 26 to reinstate the borders laid out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.
Israel says that it must remain in the occupied territory because the Lebanese military has failed to prevent Hezbollah from operating there. “There is movement, but it is not moving fast enough,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said on Thursday.
According to Andrea Tenenti, the spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, Israel still occupies around 70 percent of the territory that it captured after its Oct. 1, 2024, incursion into the country. It is unclear how long the Israeli presence may continue, but one Israeli official told CNN that the government wants its forces to remain in Lebanon for at least another 30 days.
“It is imperative to prioritize the security of northern residents and ensure that the threat to northern communities does not reemerge,” Israeli parliamentarian Benny Gantz wrote on X on Friday, referring to past Hezbollah attacks on Israeli towns near the border. “Otherwise, we have learned nothing from Oct. 7.”
Hezbollah warned Israel on Thursday that if its forces remain in Lebanon, then the group would consider Israel’s actions to be “a blatant violation of the agreement, an attack on Lebanese sovereignty, and the beginning of a new chapter of occupation.” The militant group has called on international monitors, including the United States and France, to prevent Israel from prolonging its presence there.
Under the November cease-fire deal, only the Lebanese military and U.N. peacekeepers can remain in southern Lebanon after the 60-day deadline expires.
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog said that Israel was in close talks with the Trump administration and was seeking U.S. approval to delay its withdrawal. On Friday, the White House said that a “short, temporary ceasefire extension is urgently needed” in Lebanon and that it was working with allies to finalize an extension.
“President [Donald] Trump is committed to ensuring Israeli citizens can safely return to their homes in northern Israel, while also supporting President [Joseph] Aoun and the new Lebanese government,” National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told Al-Arabiya English in an emailed statement. “We are pleased that the IDF has started the withdrawal from the central regions, and we continue to work closely with our regional partners to finalize the extension.”
Israel’s threat to the cease-fire deal is a test for Aoun. Upon taking office this month, ending a yearslong power vacuum in the country, Aoun vowed to centralize Lebanon’s weapons under the mandate of the state. Such a pledge expressed his desire to remove Hezbollah’s long-time grip on power, even as the militant group’s influence remains entrenched in Lebanese politics.
However, should fighting between Israel and Hezbollah restart, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned that Israeli attacks would not differentiate between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Armed Forces. Hezbollah forces have been steadily attacking Israel since Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with its fellow Iranian-backed proxy Hamas in Gaza.
Alexandra Sharp is the World Brief writer at Foreign Policy
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Netanyahu suggests Israel might not complete its withdrawal from Lebanon by a ceasefire deadline
AP / January 24, 2025
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested Friday that Israel might not withdraw all of its forces from Lebanon by a deadline set in its ceasefire with Hezbollah, and Washington appears prepared to push for an extension.
Under the deal reached in November, Israel is supposed to complete its withdrawal from the country by Sunday. Hezbollah militants must pull back to the north of the Litani River, and the Lebanese armed forces would patrol the buffer zone in southern Lebanon alongside U.N. peacekeepers.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the ceasefire “is based on the understanding that the withdrawal process could possibly continue beyond the 60 days.” The statement went on to say that the Lebanese government hasn’t yet “fully enforced” the agreement, an apparent reference to the deployment of Lebanese troops.
Israeli officials have held talks in recent days with the United States, which brokered the agreement along with France.
The Trump administration believes that “a short, temporary ceasefire extension is urgently needed” in Lebanon, National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement Friday.
“President Trump is committed to ensuring Israeli citizens can safely return to their homes in northern Israel,” while also supporting the new Lebanese government under President Michel Aoun, the statement said.
“All parties share the goal of ensuring Hezbollah does not have the ability to threaten the Lebanese people or their neighbours,” Hughes said. He said the U.S. is “pleased that the IDF has started the withdrawal from the central regions.”
There was no immediate response to Netanyahu’s statement from Lebanon or Hezbollah.
The Lebanese government has said that it can’t send its forces into areas until Israeli troops have withdrawn. Hezbollah has warned that it could resume the fighting if Israel doesn’t withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with the ceasefire.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel the day after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 ignited the war in the Gaza Strip. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are allies of Iran, and Hezbollah said that it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes, and the sides traded fire for more than a year. The war escalated in September, when Israel carried out a heavy wave of airstrikes across Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his deputies. Israeli ground forces invaded days later.
Israeli air and ground assaults killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. At the height of the war, more than 1 million Lebanese people were displaced.
Hezbollah rockets forced around 60,000 people from their homes in northern Israel, and killed 76 people in Israel, including 31 soldiers. Almost 50 Israeli soldiers were killed during operations inside Lebanon.
