Israel keeps some troops in Lebanon after truce withdrawal deadline

Israel has kept troops at five strategic locations inside Lebanon, despite Tuesday’s deadline to withdraw from the country as part of a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah.

The move highlights the fragility of the truce, whose terms Hezbollah accuse Israel of breaking.

Nadav Shoshani, a spokesperson for Israel’s military, said the retention of troops at five vantage points in Lebanon was necessary to ensure the safety of Israeli citizens who live near the border. About 60,000 of them remain displaced as a result of the earlier fighting.

The “temporary measure” was approved by the US-led body monitoring the ceasefire, Shoshani suggested.

Israel was still committed to withdrawing its soldiers in “the right way, in a gradual way, and in a way that the security of our civilians is kept,” he added.

“We are determined to provide full security to every northern community,” said Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, who confirmed that his country had sent reinforcements to new posts erected on its side of the border.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said the truce “must be respected,” before claiming that “the Israeli enemy cannot be trusted.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, whose predecessor Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September, said on Sunday that “there can be no excuses” for Israeli soldiers remaining in Lebanon.

Under the initial terms of the ceasefire agreed in November, Israeli soldiers in a buffer zone in southern Lebanon were supposed to be replaced by the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers in late January. The deadline was then extended until 18 February.

Hezbollah was to pull back its forces to the north of the Litani river, which is around 30 km from the Israeli border.

A low-level conflict between Israel and Hezbollah started on 8 October 2023, when the Iran-backed militant group fired rockets at its neighbour in solidarity with Hamas, who had killed 1,200 people the previous day in attacks on southern Israel.

The fighting intensified in September after Israel remotely detonated pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members. Nasrallah was killed shortly afterwards when the Israeli military bombed a building in southern Beirut.

Israeli troops entered Lebanon on 1 October. Almost two months later, Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire mediated by the US and France.

More than 4,000 Lebanese people have been killed during the conflict.

Of the 1 million people in Lebanon displaced at the height of the conflict, some 100,000 still have not been able to return home.