Israel said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold talks to demarcate its border with Lebanon, adding it would release five Lebanese detainees held by the Israeli military in what it called a "gesture to the Lebanese president".
While details of the border talks remain undisclosed, analysts view this step as a significant diplomatic move that could shape future relations between Israel and Lebanon © Mena Today
Israel said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold talks to demarcate its border with Lebanon, adding it would release five Lebanese detainees held by the Israeli military in what it called a "gesture to the Lebanese president".
A statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel had agreed with Lebanon, the U.S. and France to establish working groups to discuss the demarcation line between the two countries.
Though Israel has largely withdrawn from southern Lebanon under a ceasefire deal agreed in November, its troops continue to hold five hilltop positions in the area with airstrikes in southern Lebanon citing what it described as Hezbollah activity.
The ceasefire deal ended more than a year of conflict between Israel's military and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that was playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting peaked in a major Israeli air and ground campaign that uprooted more than a million people in Lebanon and left the Iranian-backed Hezbollah badly weakened, with most of its military command killed in Israeli strikes.
By Bruno Finel
The past few days have unfolded like a geopolitical drama of historic proportions in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia militia long considered untouchable, appears to be teetering on the edge of a seismic shift.
Israel has not ruled out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities in the coming months despite President Donald Trump telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. was for now unwilling to support such a move, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
In a defiant speech on Friday evening, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, insisted that the group “will not allow anyone to disarm it,” rejecting growing internal calls for the Lebanese state to reclaim exclusive control over the country’s weapons.
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