Marco Rubio Announces Israel-Lebanon Framework Agreement With U.S. After Hezbollah Conflict

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with Israel and Lebanon’s ambassadors, announced a framework agreement Friday described as a first step toward peace after months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

The officials did not share details on the agreement signed by Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, and Nada Hamadeh, ambassador of Lebanon to the United States, and Hamadeh said the framework “is a first step on the road to restoring Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Al-Bawaba Al-Hadaf Al-Ikhbariyya

Leiter said the final destination of the framework is peace between the two countries, adding “In this performance-based trilateral framework agreement, Iran is out. Hezbollah is out.”

The NBC News account tied the latest conflict to when Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel days after Israel and the U.S. launched their war on Iran on Feb. 28, and it said Israel invaded Lebanon and expanded its control.

It also said more than 4,000 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes since March, while at least 37 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon or northern Israel during the fighting.

Israeli forces dropped leaflets over the southern Lebanese town of Mansouri on Friday ordering residents to leave, Lebanese state media reported, the first such order issued since the latest ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect.

The Israeli military later said it killed Hezbollah militants who had operated near its so-called “security zone” in southern Lebanon on Friday, stating it had “struck and eliminated seven Hezbollah terrorists who transferred weapons near the Security Zone in southern Lebanon.”

Al-Yawm Al-Sabea

A senior Lebanese military official said Israel had recently added the town of Mansouri to its occupation zone, while the Israeli military spokesperson said the leaflets were a “reminder” that “the area is within the security zone in which IDF soldiers operate.”

The Arab News report said Lebanese officials say Israeli troops are enforcing the zone’s northern boundary by firing at anyone approaching it, including civilians and Lebanese soldiers, and it noted Reuters could not confirm the Israeli claim.

In parallel, the NBC News account said Lebanese officials have prioritized a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, while Israeli officials prioritized disarmament of Hezbollah, which the NBC News said is unlikely to agree to disarmament throughout the country.

A United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon was targeted Saturday morning by small-arms fire, leaving one dead and three French UN peacekeepers wounded, two of them seriously, according to UNIFIL and President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron and UNIFIL accused Hezbollah, but the Lebanese militant group denied any involvement, and the Noovo Info report said the attack occurred near the village of Ghandouriyeh in southern Lebanon after a ten-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect Thursday at midnight.

The same Noovo Info account said Macron identified the dead soldier as Staff Sergeant Florian Montorio of the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment in Montauban, and it quoted France’s Minister of the Armed Forces Catherine Vautrin saying the soldier was killed in an ambush.

Separately, L’actualité reported that Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a house in southern Lebanon where she had taken shelter while covering the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The outlet said Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos called the killing “a crime and a flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law,” and it added that her body could not be recovered from the rubble until several hours later.