A virtual meeting between Lebanese and Israeli military delegations scheduled for Friday to discuss the first pilot zones in south Lebanon has been postponed, Lebanese political and security sources have told The National.
Discussions are under way to reschedule the US-brokered meeting, which had been expected to address the technical details for establishing the pilot zones. Two sources said it could be moved to July 23, when Gen Joseph Clearfield, the head of US Central Command, is due in Lebanon.
“It was delayed to finalise the technical preparations … but, to base this in reality, the Israelis are stalling,” a security source said. “The Americans are pressuring for this plan to work.”
Lebanese officials have previously told The National that they were concerned Israel would drag its feet on implementing the pilot zones – two small trial areas in which the Lebanese army would assume control, Hezbollah would disarm, and Israeli forces would withdraw.
The pilot zone formula, part of a US-brokered plan signed by Israel and Lebanon on June 26, would then be expanded to other parts of Israeli-occupied south Lebanon.
Two days of US-brokered direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel ended in Rome on Wednesday without a timetable for implementing the two pilot zones in south Lebanon. Friday’s military meeting was intended to determine the technical details for implementation in the areas.
The primary sticking point is an agreement over a mechanism to verify Hezbollah’s disarmament from the zones, a political source told The National earlier this week. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has flatly rejected the plan.
A ceasefire declared in June froze the fighting on the front line. But Israeli troops have continued to raze neighbourhoods in areas where they are present, while continuing to bombard the areas not under their control, albeit it with less frequency, saying they are targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
Israel has shown no indication it is planning to withdraw from south Lebanon. Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said it was determined to maintain what it calls “security zones” in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza “in order to protect Israel's borders and the communities near the border from the threats posed by jihadist forces”.
