Israel says it won’t withdraw from Lebanon by Sunday deadline

By Mick Krever and Jeremy Diamond, CNN

(CNN) — The Israeli government says its military will not withdraw from Lebanon by Sunday’s deadline, in violation of a ceasefire agreement that ended months of conflict with Hezbollah.

Israel was expected to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon as part of the deal but the Israeli government said some its forces would remain in southern Lebanon, blaming Lebanon for failing to uphold its end of the agreement.

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) withdrawal is conditional upon the Lebanese army deploying in southern Lebanon,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “Since the ceasefire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by Lebanon, the gradual withdrawal process will continue, in full coordination with the United States.”

US National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said on Friday the United States was working with partners on a “short” and “temporary” extension of the ceasefire.

A Lebanese security source told CNN on Friday it had not received official notice of Israel’s plans to keep their forces in Lebanon beyond the 60-day ceasefire grace period.

Under the November ceasefire agreement, both Israeli and Hezbollah forces agreed to withdraw from southern Lebanon by January 26, the end of a 60-day period stipulated in the deal.

Hezbollah warned on Thursday that if the Israeli military remained in Lebanon past Sunday, it would be “considered a brazen breach of the agreement.”

The Israeli military invaded southern Lebanon on October 1 – the culmination of a yearlong, low-level war with Hezbollah, which attacked Israeli-held territory on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas.

The Israeli government had told US President Donald Trump’s administration that it wanted Israeli troops to remain in Lebanon for at least an additional 30 days, an Israeli official told CNN. The Israeli security cabinet met Thursday night to discuss the issue.

“All parties share the goal of ensuring Hezbollah does not have the ability to threaten the Lebanese people or their neighbors,” the US National Security Council spokesperson said, adding, “To achieve these goals, a short, temporary ceasefire extension is urgently needed.”

“We are pleased that the IDF has started the withdrawal from the central regions, and we continue to work closely with our regional partners to finalize the extension,” he added.

Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, told Israel’s Army Radio on Thursday that a 60-day deadline set out in a November ceasefire agreement “is not set in stone.”

An Israeli official who described Israel’s request to the US said Israel has requested a 30-day extension and has said it would re-assess the viability of withdrawing from southern Lebanon at the end of that extension. The official said all of the outposts Israel has asked to maintain are alongside the Israel-Lebanon border.

Under the deal, the Lebanese military and UN peacekeepers will be the only forces allowed in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah must pull its forces north of Lebanon’s Litani River – a frontier beyond which the militant group was not supposed to have advanced under a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution.

“That is not yet the case,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said of Hezbollah’s withdrawal and the Lebanese military’s deployment in a briefing Thursday. “There is movement, but it is not moving fast enough.”

Hezbollah warned on Thursday that an Israeli breach of the agreement would require the Lebanese state “to deal with it by every means at its disposal afforded to it by international treaties in order to retrieve the land and snatch it from the clutches of occupation.”

US sees ‘a very positive path’

There has for some time been speculation in Israel that the government would seek to change the terms of its ceasefire with Hezbollah once Trump took office.

The exact situation in southern Lebanon is decidedly opaque. The Israeli military has spent these past months of the ceasefire feverishly destroying Hezbollah weapons and military infrastructure and leveling several Lebanese villages near the border. Hezbollah’s military posture is unclear.

The clearest picture has been painted by the US military, which together with the French government and the United Nations is monitoring the ceasefire.

US Major General Jasper Jeffers, who leads the American effort, said after a trip to southern Lebanon last week that Lebanese military “checkpoints and patrols operate effectively throughout south-west Lebanon.” He said that the belligerents were “on a very positive path to continue the withdrawal of the IDF as planned.”

Earlier this month, Lebanon’s parliament elected Joseph Aoun, supported by the US and formerly the military chief, as president. It ended more than two years of stalemate that had resulted in a presidential vacuum. The election was brought about by a robust Saudi effort to rally the necessary support for Aoun.

In his acceptance speech, viewed as a blueprint for a six-year tenure, Aoun vowed to monopolize weapons under the mandate of the state. It was an earth-shattering promise, marking a clear break with the decades-old unwritten policy to preserve Hezbollah’s militant wing which has de facto been tasked with facing off against Israeli forces.

The American optimism over the ceasefire is not shared by many civilians from northern Israel, who have been slow to return to communities emptied by war. Residents of Kiryat Shmona are set to demonstrate against the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon on Sunday.

“Most communities are still empty,” Sarit Zehavi, who runs the Alma Research and Education Center, which specializes in security issues in northern Israel. “People want to come back.”

There is a widespread fear in northern Israel, she said, that military withdrawal will give Hezbollah carte blanche to deploy close to Israel’s border, under the nose of the Lebanese military.

“The Lebanese army is far from disarming Hezbollah,” she said. “We are very worried what will happen if the IDF fully withdraws and the IDF enforcement will stop, because we don’t see the Lebanese army doing anything.”

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CNN’s Lauren Izso, Eugenia Yosef, Charbel Mallo, Tamara Qiblawi and Max Saltman contributed to this report.