US, Lebanese delegations meet to discuss Israeli ‘pilot zones’ withdrawal

Military delegations from the United States and Lebanon have met in Beirut to work out how to implement the first phase of a US-brokered framework agreement intended to achieve an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Lebanese sources told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the talks focused on establishing a mechanism for the first of two so-called “pilot zones” outlined in the agreement. The meeting follows reports in Lebanese media and the Financial Times that a US delegation had arrived in Beirut for the discussions. US ambassador Michel Issa told President Joseph Aoun on Thursday that the US delegation was coming to “determine the mechanism” for implementing the deal.

Under the framework agreement reached on June 26, Israel will gradually withdraw from areas of southern Lebanon where it has deployed troops to fight Hezbollah. As part of the agreement, it is reported that the long-disempowered Lebanese military will take full control of two small areas dubbed “pilot zones”. The agreement – rejected by Hezbollah – does not set a timetable for Israel’s withdrawal, and Israeli officials have vowed that their forces will remain in a “security zone” 10km (six miles) deep, as long as Hezbollah remains armed.

“Hezbollah has maintained its opposition to those direct talks between Lebanon and Israel, preferring to maintain a ceasefire between the US and Iran which stipulates a ceasefire here in Lebanon,” Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett reported from Lebanon. “But despite the breakdown in that ceasefire this week, the group has held its fire here in Lebanon,” she said.

Despite the ceasefire, Israeli attacks continue. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported several raids in the south on Saturday, including residential neighbourhoods in the town of al-Mansouri in Tyre district where seven people were injured. Israeli forces also used three tanks and several bulldozers to advance into the eastern edge of the town of Beit Yahoun. In Houla, also in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces ignited fires, damaging homes and olive trees, and blew up homes in Nabatieh district.

The war, which began in early March after the US and Israel attacked Iran, has displaced more than a million people in Lebanon, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA. It said on Saturday that more than 732,000 people had returned home, up from 640,000 a week ago, leaving about 430,000 still displaced.

The latest talks between Lebanon and Israel, which have no formal relations but have met for five rounds of negotiations since the start of the war, will be in Rome next Wednesday and Thursday. Lebanon conditions its participation on Israel withdrawing from two “pilot zones”. The talks precede Aoun’s expected visit to Washington later this month at the invitation of his US counterpart, Donald Trump.