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Agencies

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel’s military will stay in southern Lebanon, where it has occupied up to 10km (6 miles) from the border.
The remarks were his first comment since the United States and Iran signed an agreement to end the Middle East war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting the militant Hezbollah group.
It was unclear what that US-Iran deal means in practice. Israel and Hezbollah are not parties to the agreement.
Netanyahu said Israel must “maintain a security zone in southern Lebanon, and it requires that we must not leave there as long as Israel’s security needs require it”.
He has made similar comments in the past about Israel’s refusal to withdraw from southern Lebanon.
For its part, Hezbollah has said that it was committed to resisting Israel. Continued fighting between the two sides could derail the deal.


Trump said he expects a complete ceasefire on all fronts. “The United States is committed to PEACE, and ⁠we encourage everyone in the Middle East Region to maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations to beautifully unfold,” he said on social media on Thursday.
Trump has become openly critical of Israel’s operations in Lebanon, leading to one of the biggest rifts between the two countries in decades. US Vice-President J.D. Vance warned Israel to respect the peace process.
“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” he said at the White House.
On Thursday, Hezbollah said its fighters were engaged in fresh clashes with the Israeli military, hours after Lebanese state media reported that Israeli strikes in the south killed three people.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group, said it was fighting “a force of the Israeli enemy army that attempted to advance from the town of Arnoun towards the outskirts of Kfar Tibnit”, near the key town of Nabatieh.
“The clashes are still ongoing,” it added in the statement released in the late afternoon.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in March by attacking Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the US-Israeli campaign.
Israel retaliated with broad strikes across Lebanon and by launching a ground invasion in the south, which borders Israel and has long been under Hezbollah’s sway.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday that “an enemy drone targeted a car” in the Kfar Tibnit area, killing two people.
In the neighbouring village of Zebdine, another drone killed one more person, NNA said.
Israel’s military, meanwhile, announced the death of one of its soldiers the night before in an incident in south Lebanon that also left seven others wounded.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said that peacekeepers in Lebanon had also reported exchanges of fire on Thursday.

“So far today, 143 trajectories of projectiles were observed. Of these, 119 were attributed to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), with the remainder to Hezbollah,” Dujarric said at a daily briefing.
“Yesterday, 364 projectile launches were observed, of which 330 were attributed to the IDF and 34 to Hezbollah.”
In an earlier statement, Hezbollah said on Thursday that its fighters had repelled a four-day Israeli offensive towards the Ali al-Taher hills and Kfar Tibnit.
The Ali al-Taher hills are a strategic height overlooking Nabatieh and are believed to hold important Hezbollah military infrastructure.
Hezbollah said it had attacked Israeli troops and tanks with drones, rockets and artillery, forcing them to retreat “under the cover of smoke screens and artillery fire during the night”.
Also on Thursday, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, said that Israel’s war in Lebanon had “failed” to eliminate the group.

He also called on Lebanese authorities to “adopt a framework for indirect negotiations with the enemy” to stop the fighting.
He said the Israeli military must “fully comply with the cessation of hostilities on land, at sea and in the air, and prepare for and begin withdrawal within 60 days, without any need whatsoever for direct negotiations”.
The Israeli military, however, said on Thursday that it would continue to operate in southern Lebanon even after the US and Iran signed their agreement.
The military also published a map of its so-called security zone – which runs some 10km (6 miles) inside Lebanese territory and includes the area where Hezbollah said it had confronted the Israeli offensive.
It said troops would remain there “to remove threats and strengthen the defence of Israel’s northern residents”.
In a later statement, an Israeli military official said the army would also “continue to remove threats to IDF soldiers and the civilians of the State of Israel that are identified beyond the security zone”.
Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters


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Middle East

An Israeli flag hangs from a damaged building in a southern Lebanon border village, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out any military withdrawal. Photo: Reuters

Israeli military vehicles in southern Lebanon. Photo: Reuters

Rubble of buildings damaged by Israeli strikes in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon. Photo: AP

A map published by the Israeli military of its so-called security zone. Photo: Israel Defence Forces via Reuters

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A Lebanese security serviceman stands near the site of a flat targeted by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon on Sunday. Photo: EPA

Demonstrators with placards, including one depicting US President Donald Trump and reading “Bibi Netanyahu’s good boy” during an anti-G7 rally ahead of the group’s summit in Geneva, Switzerland on Sunday. Photo: AFP

A group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men looks towards southern Lebanon, from the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel on Sunday. Photo: Reuters

People clean up near the site of a flat targeted by an Israeli air strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon on Sunday. Photo: EPA

US Vice-President J.D. Vance during a press briefing at the White House on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Vessels remain anchored in Bandar Abbas along the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. Photo: ISNA/AFP/Getty Images/TNS

The new Iran agreement has strained relations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. Photo: Reuters

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a news conference in Jerusalem on Monday. Photo: EPA

A destroyed building following an Israeli strike in the village of Srifa, southern Lebanon on Monday. Photo: EPA

Iran says US peace deal must include permanent Lebanon ceasefire

A banner with an image of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hangs from a building destroyed in an air strike in Jibchit, Lebanon, on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

People returning to their village following the announcement of an initial ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran walk in a destroyed market shop in Nabatiyeh town, southern Lebanon, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (right) meets Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on June 7. Photo: dpa

Lebanon peace talks with Israel ‘independent’ of US-Iran deal: Aoun

Men ride a motorcycle past buildings damaged by Israeli strikes in Nabatieh, Lebanon, on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters 

A woman looks at smoke rising in southern Lebanon from the Israeli side of the border on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

News

World

Fighting persists in Lebanon as both Israel and Hezbollah ignore the new US-Iran framework agreement


Fighting persists in Lebanon as both Israel and Hezbollah ignore the new US-Iran framework agreement.


After US-Iran deal, Israel rules out troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Fighting persists in Lebanon as both Israel and Hezbollah ignore the new US-Iran framework agreement

Fighting persists in Lebanon as both Israel and Hezbollah ignore the new US-Iran framework agreement