Lebanese president to seek U.S. guarantees at White House meeting
Lebanon and Israel are preparing to implement the first two pilot zones in southern Lebanon as an early test of the June 26 U.S.-brokered framework agreement, according to a diplomatic source familiar with Lebanon’s negotiating team. The zones were agreed upon by both sides and are designed to enable the Lebanese Army to deploy and “restore effective sovereign authority,” the source said.
The pilot areas cover the towns of Froun, Ghandourieh, Zawtar al-Gharbieh and Zawtar al-Sharqieh in the central sector of southern Lebanon near the Litani River. If the zones are successfully implemented and verified, displaced residents would be permitted to return and reconstruction could begin, paving the way for further Israeli withdrawals.
A U.S. military delegation is expected in Beirut for talks with the Lebanese Army on the procedures to be applied in the pilot zones. Israeli media reports have indicated that the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the two zones is expected to begin in the coming days.
The diplomatic source said the framework agreement, reached after four days of marathon talks in Washington, fell short of Lebanon’s expectations and faced strong rejection from Hezbollah, but was viewed as the only available option to prevent a worse outcome. The source said the agreement reinforced the principle that the Lebanese state is negotiating on its own behalf and halted a phase of intensive Israeli military operations and destruction. Most importantly, the source said, the agreement paved the way for some 500,000 to 600,000 displaced residents to return to their villages.
“The displaced people reacted quickly; the scale of their return was beyond expectations,” the source told UPI. The returns took place despite continued Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon that have caused further casualties and damage, though the cease-fire agreement has significantly reduced the scale of attacks and spared Beirut and other areas.
The source cautioned that Israel, which was forced into the Washington negotiations, “is not in a mood to withdraw or give anything before the … Israeli elections, if it can avoid it,” while repeatedly reaffirming its intention to “retain a security zone, a scorched-earth area in southern Lebanon … a land without people or a single stone standing.”
“After the [Israeli] elections [in late October], only God knows what will happen. … The vivid illustration is Gaza,” the source said, emphasizing the need for greater pressure on Israel to ensure it implements the agreement “in good faith,” beginning with the pilot zones as a critical step toward reversing the current trajectory.
This is expected to be Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s main request when he meets U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on July 21. The source said Trump and his administration will also have to reconcile Lebanon’s aim of achieving a security agreement backed by U.S. guarantees with Israel’s demand for a peace accord.
The source said another challenge is preventing Iran and Hezbollah — which insist that Lebanon remain part of the U.S.-Iran negotiation track — from thwarting the framework agreement and the implementation of the pilot zones, and from pushing Lebanon away from its separate U.S.-mediated negotiations with Israel. The framework agreement succeeded “to a great extent” in separating the U.S.-Iran track from the Lebanon-Israel one, the source said, warning that “the alternative would be Israel continuing its campaign of destruction and displacement.”
The core of the June 26 accord is Hezbollah’s disarmament and the dismantling of its military infrastructure — a key Israeli condition for ending the war and withdrawing from Lebanon, according to the source. Implementation rests largely with Tehran. Iran, which has nurtured, armed and financed Hezbollah since its founding in the early 1980s, would not easily relinquish such an important card in its negotiations with Washington.
Riad Kahwaji, a Middle East security analyst, said Hezbollah’s rejection of the agreement and refusal to cooperate left the Lebanese state “in a war not of its choosing, negotiating and committing to steps that are not entirely within its control.”
“Here we have a very blurry picture. The big question is how the Lebanese state is going to carry out its end of the deal when Hezbollah is operating as a rogue force in a mutiny against the state,” Kahwaji told UPI, referring to the Lebanese state’s ability to disarm Hezbollah and prevent its fighters from returning to areas Israel is expected to evacuate.
Kahwaji said that while Aoun’s meeting with Trump represents “a big opportunity” for Lebanon, it is also a major test for the Lebanese state to demonstrate its strength, seriousness and some action. Failing to do so would give Israel a pretext to walk away from the agreement and continue its military campaign, as it has been doing in Gaza.
For Lebanon, securing U.S. pressure on Israel to begin a gradual withdrawal from southern Lebanon is essential to strengthening the Lebanese state’s position, weakening Hezbollah-Iran arguments and reducing their intransigence, Kahwaji said. Otherwise, Lebanon would remain a bargaining chip for Iran, which would continue to dictate its negotiating track and use the country as a front in any future escalation with the United States.