Lebanese troops entered the southern town of Zawtar Al Gharbiyeh on Tuesday morning and began demining operations following the withdrawal of Israeli troops, a security official and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) said.
The LAF said their units came under fire from Israeli soldiers as they deployed in the town, although no injuries were reported. “This aggression will obstruct the implementation of deployment steps,” the LAF said.
Zawtar Al Gharbiyeh is the first town to be transferred from Israeli to Lebanese military control under the “pilot-zone” scheme, part of the US-mediated Lebanon-Israel framework agreement. The handover comes on the day Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is set to meet President Donald Trump at the White House.
The LAF said soldiers deployed in the town on Tuesday morning “based on ongoing communications with the Military Co-ordination Group for Lebanon”, which was formed as part of the framework agreement.
The Lebanese security official said soldiers had already begun their first task of surveying the town for unexploded ordnance, including roads and residential buildings. An army statement on Tuesday afternoon said troops had begun detonating ordnance.
Zawtar Al Gharbiyeh suffered extensive damage during fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, as well as demolitions carried out by Israeli troops during their occupation of the town.
The LAF urged residents, who have been displaced for months, not to return until the security situation has stabilised.
The US announced on Monday that the implementation of pilot zones for the Israeli military's withdrawal from south Lebanon, under the framework agreed in June, had begun in three Lebanese villages.
However, two of the villages – Froun and Srifa – were already empty of Israeli troops and had Lebanese soldiers operating there, state officials and residents previously told The National.
Under the agreement, the pilot areas are intended to “serve as the mechanism for the phased and verified redeployment of Israeli forces and the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces”.
The Israeli military occupied large areas of south Lebanon in a ground invasion launched after the Lebanese armed group and political party Hezbollah began launching rockets across the border on March 2. This followed the launch of a joint Israeli-US aerial war on Iran that also killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Israel insists it will not withdraw until the threat posed by Hezbollah to its northern communities is removed. Meanwhile, its military has been demolishing dozens of towns and villages in the so-called security zone it occupies in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah has lambasted the government's push to disarm the group and its direct negotiations with Israel.
Hassan Ezzeddine, one of the group's MPs, said on Tuesday that Mr Aoun's “insistence” on direct negotiations and refusal to back down from his positions “are in reality creating a deep division within the country”.
Mr Aoun's visit to Washington followed two days of US-mediated Israel-Lebanon talks in Rome last week that ended without a timetable for implementing the June 26 agreement.
