US Special Envoy Amos Hochstein has reportedly “guaranteed” to Lebanon that Israel will entirely withdraw from all of southern Lebanon by the 60-day deadline, as called for in the ceasefire ending the Israeli invasion in November.
Hochstein is said to have provided Lebanese officials with a schedule of Israeli pullouts, though that has not been made public. The ceasefire deadline is just two weeks away at this point though, and Israeli officials in the past week have been talking about ditching the ceasefire deal entirely.
Israel has withdrawn from a handful of towns and villages, though they have also seized additional villages deeper in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire began. The Israeli military continues to warn civilians against attempting to return to villages in the south.
But Lebanese troops have returned to those villages, including Tayr Harfa. They are finding widespread destruction. In Tayr Harfa many buildings are damaged or destroyed, and the olive fields that are vital to the areas’ agricultural economy are in ruins.
Even with the US promise that they’re leaving, Israel continues to carry out attacks in defiance of the ceasefire, and continues to blow up homes. Several homes were reported destroyed today in Ayta al-Shaab.
Sunday evening Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes against the Nabatiyah region in the south. They also reported hit areas in the eastern Bekaa Valley, near the Lebanon-Syria border. Israel claimed the strikes in the Bekaa Valley were targeting Hezbollah, and that the international ceasefire mechanism had “failed” to address the matter.
The ceasefire requires Israel to notify the international mechanism, run by the US, before it carries out attacks. Despite hundreds of Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the ceasefire began, Israel has not often discussed reporting the issue to the mechanism. It’s not clear, for instance, if they reported to the US that reporters were in Khiam in the hours after the ceasefire began before shooting at them.
Israel seems to be leaving villages after more or less totally destroying them, and since they have escalated that destruction in recent weeks, they’ve been able to leave more villages since they were before. It remains uncertain, however, whether they’ll actually finish with what they intend to accomplish and leave in the next two weeks, despite Hochstein’s confidence in that schedule.
