US military delegation visits Beirut to discuss IDF ‘pilot zone’ withdrawal

A US military delegation met with Lebanon’s army in Beirut to discuss the implementation of Israel’s withdrawal from a “pilot zone” in occupied territory, a Lebanese military official told AFP on Saturday.

Under a framework agreement reached on June 26, Israel will gradually withdraw from areas of southern Lebanon where it has deployed troops to fight Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shi’ite terror movement.

As part of the agreement, the long-disempowered Lebanese military will take full control of two small areas dubbed pilot zones.

“The American military delegation arrived and began meetings with the Lebanese army command to discuss the mechanisms for implementing the first pilot zone from which the Israelis will withdraw, allowing the Lebanese army to deploy,” the official said, requesting anonymity.

“This is the main objective the American military delegation is bringing to Lebanon… it is the translation and implementation of the framework agreement.”

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US Ambassador Michel Issa told President Joseph Aoun on Thursday that the American delegation was coming to “determine the mechanism” for the deal’s implementation.

In Washington, a US official had said on condition of anonymity that “the first pilot zone will launch in a matter of days, and further pilot zones are being mapped out and planned.”

US Central Command will coordinate on the zones with both countries, he said.

The agreement — rejected by Hezbollah — does not set a timetable for Israel’s withdrawal, and Israeli officials have also vowed that their forces will remain in a “security zone” 10 kilometers (six miles) deep as long as Hezbollah remains armed.

The war, which began in early March when Hezbollah entered the wider Middle East conflict on the side of its backer Iran, displaced more than a million people in Lebanon, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA.

On Saturday the agency said more than 732,000 people had now returned home, up from 640,000 a week before.

That leaves more than 430,000 still displaced, it added.

Israel has pursued intermittent strikes amid the truce with Hezbollah, with Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reporting several in the south on Saturday, including in the town of Mansouri near Tyre.

The Israel Defense Forces later said it struck Hezbollah operatives who were identified transporting weapons inside the south Lebanon buffer zone.

Troops of the 91st “Galilee” Regional Division spotted several Hezbollah operatives entering the IDF’s security zone in a vehicle and moving several anti-tank missiles from it into a building, the military said, sharing footage of the incident.

After several more Hezbollah operatives transported weapons into the building and entered it, the IDF carried out an airstrike against the structure “to remove the threat.”

The military said secondary explosions were identified at the building following the strike, which it published video of.

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 take place 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 American counterpart Donald Trump.