Israeli defence minister says troops won’t withdraw from southern Lebanon as attacks slow but do not stop.
An Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon has killed at least two people despite fighting between Israel and Hezbollah quieting down in recent days after demands by both the United States and Iran for a ceasefire.
This comes as officials from Israel and Lebanon meet in the US for another round of talks aimed at ending fighting between the neighbouring countries.
The deadly Israeli attack on Wednesday targeted a vehicle on the Tallat al-Dabsha road near Kfar Reman in the Nabatieh district, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported. Soon after, Israel’s military targeted the outskirts of the town of Yater in the Bint Jbeil area with artillery shells, NNA added.
The attacks are the latest violation of a renewed ceasefire reached last week following an agreement between the US and Iran aimed at working to end the wider Middle East war.
The Israeli army claimed it was targeting Hezbollah operatives in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.
Israel’s continued occupation of Lebanese territory has been a cause for debate and tension as talks in Washington continue. Lebanese politicians affirmed it is essential that Israeli troops leave Lebanese territory and cease their attacks for the ceasefire to hold. Israel, meanwhile, said it would only leave when Hezbollah is fully disarmed.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the military will not withdraw from Lebanon “even if there is an American demand”.
He added, “200,000 residents will not return”, speaking to The Times of Israel about the people forcibly displaced from southern Lebanon.
“What happened in the past when there was a civilian population [present] was roadside bombs and attacks against the [Israeli] soldiers, and therefore we will not allow that,” Katz added. “We are not withdrawing.”
“What we are seeing is a reduction, but not a cessation, of Israeli military activity here in southern Lebanon,” said Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett, reporting from the Lebanese town of Tyre on Wednesday.
“The Israeli military has continued to carry out operations, though they have been much more limited than the violence that we saw over the weekend,” she added.
Many people originally from southern Lebanon have returned home, Pett added, despite the constant threat of attacks. In the town of Abbasiyeh, near the city of Tyre, 80 percent of people have returned over recent days, according to the local mayor.
“In Abbasiyeh … there is water, there is electricity, there are local medical services. That is not the case for many towns and villages,” Plett said.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan in Washington, DC, said that the latest round of Israel-Lebanon talks is expected to include a military-to-military component.
“There is a proposal, perhaps, to allow Lebanese forces to replace those Israeli forces, so long as they have been vetted by the United States as having no links to Hezbollah,” Jordan said.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told a visiting British delegation on Wednesday that his government will deploy the Lebanese army in the south of the country after the Israeli military withdraws.
Reconstruction of destroyed areas will come next, Aoun said, adding that the Lebanon-Israel talks in Washington, DC, are separate from the US-Iran negotiations.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, has condemned the Lebanon-Israel talks in the US, demanding the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon first.
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