JERUSALEM—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that Israeli troops will remain in Lebanon beyond the 60-day deadline set by the ceasefire deal with Hezbollah.
Netanyahu’s office said the military withdrawal from southern Lebanon was "conditioned on the Lebanese Army deploying in southern Lebanon and fully and effectively enforcing the agreement." Under the ceasefire, the Lebanese Army is responsible for the elimination of all Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon and the prevention of the terrorist group’s rearmament.
"Since the ceasefire agreement has yet to be fully enforced by the Lebanese state, the gradual withdrawal process will continue, in full coordination with the United States," the prime minister’s office said in a statement. "The State of Israel will not endanger its communities and its citizens and will insist on the complete implementation of the war objective in Lebanon—the return of the Israeli residents safely to their homes in the north."
Israel’s delayed withdrawal from Lebanon points to a dilemma at the heart of U.S.-brokered efforts to end the war. In both Lebanon and Gaza, Israel has agreed to stop fighting and withdraw on condition that Iran-backed terrorists are removed from its borders: Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south. But no force other than the Israeli military appears to have the will and the capability to enforce this condition.
"When I sit down practically every day with the heads of the [Israel Defense Forces] and the security agencies and the prime minister and the defense minister, the picture is that we still have to be there, and we still have to hold these zones," Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of Israel’s parliamentary defense committee and a member of the ruling Likud party, told the Washington Free Beacon, referring to Gaza and southern Lebanon as well as a buffer zone that Israel seized in southern Syria after Islamist rebels overthrew the Assad regime last month. "I don’t think this is a political discussion in any of these zones. I think this is a security issue. Long-term plans can be discussed in the future, but right now, we have to make sure that the borders are safe."
"We learned the hard way on Oct. 7, 2023, what happens if the border is not safe," Edelstein added, referring to the Hamas-led surprise attack on southern Israel that started the multifront war. "We saw once again that just building a fence or even having some sensors or whatever doesn’t necessarily help. So the protection should be combined protection of everything we have, including if necessary holding the strategic points on both sides of the border."
Following weeks of speculation about Israel’s planned withdrawal from Lebanon, Hebrew media reported on Thursday that Israeli officials had asked the Trump administration for a 30-day extension. Outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog confirmed to Army Radio that the administration opposed an extension, but he said, "I believe we will reach an understanding."
On Friday afternoon, an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Free Beacon that Israel’s talks with the Trump administration on the matter were "ongoing."
"Everything has been discussed," the official said, without confirming that the administration had approved the delay.
Hours later, the White House endorsed "a short, temporary ceasefire extension" in Lebanon.
"All parties share the goal of ensuring Hezbollah does not have the ability to threaten the Lebanese people or their neighbors. To achieve these goals, a short, temporary ceasefire extension is urgently needed," White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement. "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."
The Lebanese government and Hezbollah have yet to respond. But Hezbollah warned in a statement on Thursday that it would not tolerate any delay in Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon because any such "breach" would be "a blatant violation of the agreement, an attack on Lebanese sovereignty and the beginning of a new chapter of occupation."
Israel invaded southern Lebanon in late September in response to almost a year of daily Hezbollah rocket fire that forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis who lived near the northern border. Israeli troops found and destroyed terrorist infrastructure near the border, some of which was meant for an Oct. 7-style attack.
Following Trump’s election in November, Israel and Hezbollah agreed to the ceasefire, which has shakily held even as the Israeli military has accused the terrorist group of hundreds of violations. Andrea Tenenti, a spokesman for UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, told the New York Times on Friday that Israel remained in about 70 percent of the areas it had captured.
The Israeli military said on Friday evening that it was continuing "to operate in accordance with the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon."
"The IDF remains deployed in southern Lebanon, continues to monitor Hezbollah’s attempts to return to southern Lebanon, and will operate against any threat posed to IDF troops and the State of Israel," the military said in a statement, adding that it had carried out airstrikes and ground operations in recent days to "remove threats" such as Hezbollah weapons depots and observation posts.
Edelstein said Israel was committed to the ceasefire and hoped the Lebanese Army would fulfill its obligations to enforce the deal. But, he said, "the chances are not very high at this stage that the Lebanese Army will be effective."
Amir Avivi, a former senior Israeli military official, told the Free Beacon that when he met with defense minister Israel Katz on Tuesday, Katz was already committed to keeping troops in southern Lebanon, as well as in Gaza and Syria.
"As long as the Lebanese Army does not deploy in southern Lebanon, Israel is going to stay. There might be a withdrawal from specific points. But overall, Israel’s interest is to maintain a buffer zone of two to three kilometers on the Lebanese side of the border," Avivi said. "The plan is basically to stay in all the buffer zones. There is an understanding that we need to be in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria for at least the rest of this year, because this is the best way to defend the Israeli border."
Unlike Israel’s occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, which was widely been seen as a failure, the new buffer zones would be relatively narrow closed military zones, Avivi added, "no civilians, no houses, nothing."
A spokesman for Katz and a spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry declined to comment.
Edelstein, Avivi, and several other current and former Israeli military officials told the Free Beacon that Israel may have to largely or even entirely withdraw from Gaza under a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas that went into effect on Saturday. During any withdrawal, Israel can maintain a buffer zone from its side of Gaza’s borders, the current and former officials agreed. But ultimately, they said, the military will likely have to back into Gaza en force and remove Hamas from power.
"I would say the chances are high that in the near future there will be no alternative to Israel enforcing security and preventing Hamas from reorganizing," Edelstein said. "It doesn’t mean that we are not searching for some other force to rule Gaza, but there are not too many volunteers. I guess Gaza doesn’t have a very good reputation in the Arab world."
Eran Ortal, who retired last year as the commander of the Israeli military’s Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies, told the Free Beacon that an extended occupation of Gaza was "absurdly opposite to Israel’s national security strategy." Still, he argued, Israel must do it.
"In our neighborhood, no one who does Oct. 7 should remain a living actor," Ortal said. "It’s just too dangerous. We’re going to be facing copycat attempts for decades to come, and if we want to limit that phenomenon, Hamas should be annihilated from the earth."
Israel on Friday accepted Hamas’s proposed release of four young women hostages—even though the list violated the Palestinian terrorist group’s commitment to first free all living female civilians, according to Israeli news station Channel 12. Hamas reportedly blamed the breach on technical complications. All four women set to be released are soldiers who were abducted when Hamas stormed an Israeli surveillance base in the Oct. 7 attack.
Hamas has agreed to gradually release 33 female hostages during the first 42-day stage of the ceasefire in return for up to 1,904 Palestinian prisoners, including terrorists convicted of killing hundreds of Israelis. In the first exchange, on Sunday, Hamas released three female civilians—leaving 91 hostages in captivity, 57 of them presumed to be alive—and Israel freed 90 Palestinian prisoners. A potential second stage of the ceasefire would see the release of the remaining hostages and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.