Israel and Lebanon have agreed to renew their fragile ceasefire and create a number of “pilot” security zones inside Lebanon in which Hezbollah operatives would be banned, the US State Department announced.
The agreement is “contingent on a complete cessation” of attacks by the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, among other conditions.
It comes after Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday and Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, testing a partial truce agreed on Monday.
The countries “rejected any attempt, by any state or non-state actor, to hold Lebanon’s future hostage,” the statement said.
The agreement, reached after the fourth round of US-brokered talks in Washington, is contingent on the “evacuation of all [Hezbollah] operatives” from an area Israel controls in southern Lebanon from the Litani river to the border.
