Netanyahu said to ask Trump to back longer IDF deployment in Lebanon
According to report, PM seeking to maintain Israeli presence at 5 key border points for a buffer zone, a week before already-extended deadline to withdraw
While the already extended deadline for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon fast approaching, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly asked US President Donald Trump to support a further extension of the IDF’s deployment there.
According to a report on Channel 12 news on Monday, Israel is seeking to keep an IDF presence at five key border points to enable the maintenance of a buffer zone.
The report said that Israel has reiterated to the US its claim that the Lebanese Army is not effectively deployed in south Lebanon, as the terms of the ceasefire said it would, and is not preventing Hezbollah from reorganizing. Israel has warned that Hezbollah aims to return to the border area as soon as IDF troops depart.
Under the original terms of the ceasefire deal signed in November, all Israeli troops were slated to pull out of southern Lebanon by January 26, in coordination with the deployment of Lebanese troops.
Two days before that deadline, Netanyahu announced that Israel would not be withdrawing by that date, accusing Lebanon of not meeting its obligations under the agreement.
Several days later, the White House announced that Israel and Lebanon agreed to extend the deadline for Israeli troops to depart southern Lebanon until February 18.
Morgan Ortagus, Trump’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East, visited Lebanon and then Israel over the weekend.
According to Channel 12, she toured the border area with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Northern Command chief Ori Gordin during her visit.
Speaking to media in Lebanon on Friday, Ortagus said the already-extended deadline for Israeli troops to depart was a “firm date.”
“February 18th will be the date for redeployment whenever the Israeli — the IDF troops will finish their redeployment,” she said in a response to a question at the presidential palace in Beirut.
“And of course, the LAF troops will come in behind them. So, we are very committed to that firm date,” said Ortagus, adding that “I’ll be back to Lebanon quite a bit.”
Under the terms of the original deal, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in the south alongside UN peacekeepers as Israel withdrew over 60 days. Hezbollah was also to pull back north of the Litani River — about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border — and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel’s military says its forces have continued to uncover and seize Hezbollah weapons in prohibited areas and that the Lebanese army is not keeping to its part of the deal.
Meanwhile on Monday, Syrian authorities accused Hezbollah of launching attacks on Syrian security forces and sponsoring cross-border smuggling gangs.
Syrian forces clashed with smuggling gangs this week, most of whom were affiliated with Hezbollah, but did not target Lebanese territory, Lt. Col. Moayed al-Salama said in a statement carried by official Syrian news agency SANA.
Hezbollah was allied to former Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, who was toppled by Islamist-led rebels in December. The new authorities in Damascus launched anti-smuggling operations last week at the Lebanese-Syria border, where the Iranian-backed group holds sway.
On Sunday, Israeli fighter jets carried out several airstrikes in Lebanon, including against a tunnel between Lebanon and Syria used by the Hezbollah terror group to smuggle arms, the IDF said.
Salama was reported as saying on Monday: “Most smuggling gangs on the Lebanese border are affiliated with the Hezbollah militia, whose presence now poses a threat at the Syrian border because it sponsors drug and weapon smugglers.”
He blamed “the defunct regime” for turning “the Syrian-Lebanese border into corridors for the drug trade in cooperation with the Hezbollah militia, promoting the presence of armed smuggling gangs.”
Assad’s fall in December disrupted Hezbollah’s arms supply lines from Iran through the land border with Syria.
AFP contributed to this report.
