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Rome talks and conditions
Lebanon and Israel resumed talks in Rome on implementing a framework agreement in June aimed at ending the war in Lebanon, with Israel saying it is ready to move forward with plans to withdraw troops from two areas of south Lebanon under a United States-brokered deal.
“Lebanon and Israel have resumed talks in Rome, with Israel saying it is ready to move forward with plans to withdraw troops from two areas of south Lebanon under a United States-brokered deal”
A US State Department official said on Tuesday that the talks had been positive and both sides were eager to move forward, while the Lebanese presidency stated that President Joseph Aoun had instructed the Lebanese delegation to demand the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from two designated areas in southern Lebanon before any further discussions.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said his country was “ready to move forward implementing these two pilot zones,” and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday that Italy had offered to host the talks to continue work towards a genuine ceasefire in Lebanon.
The talks follow a meeting in Washington, DC on June 26 that produced an agreement calling for an end to Israel’s war on Lebanon and the disarmament of armed groups, with Hezbollah rejecting the agreement and Israel saying its troops will remain in southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah remains armed.
Strikes despite ceasefire
Israeli strikes continued across southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire brokered by the United States between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, as CNN Arabic reported new attacks on Tuesday on a residential area in the city of Sidon.
CNN Arabic said Lebanese authorities announced on Monday that five people were killed and eight others injured by an airstrike on the city of Sidon, while IDF spokesperson Avichai Adraei posted on X that “in light of Hezbollah's violation of the ceasefire and its targeting of the Israeli home front, the IDF is forced to move strongly against them.”
In parallel, Al Jazeera reported that more than 4,000 Lebanese have been killed and more than a million displaced by Israel’s war on Lebanon since March, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Al Jazeera also said at least 32 Israeli soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed by Hezbollah, most of them in southern Lebanon, since Israel began its attacks.
Evacuations, drones, and escalation
As Israel continued its strikes on southern Lebanon, the Israeli army issued evacuation warnings and claimed Hezbollah violations, including an order for the Christian quarter in Sidon that CNN Arabic described as a rare evacuation order.
CNN Arabic reported that the previous evacuation orders had exempted the Christian district, but said this is the second time the Israeli army has claimed that Hezbollah is operating inside the area and said it would be forced to strike it.
In a separate account, اندبندنت عربية reported that an Israeli warning preceded an airstrike on Tyre that yielded, in initial tallies, eight dead and 32 wounded, and it quoted an Israeli army spokesperson’s X post urging residents to evacuate “immediately and move north across the Zahrani River,” which lies about 40 kilometers from the border.
The same اندبندنت عربية report said the Israeli army announced that its forces killed a gunman who infiltrated from Lebanon after he opened fire toward them, adding that “the soldiers returned fire and killed the gunman inside the area; no army injuries were recorded,” confirming to AFP that the gunman did manage to infiltrate into Israel before he was killed.
