Hezbollah wants the Israeli army to withdraw completely from Lebanon by | Israel attacks Lebanon News

Israel says an agreement to end the war was not made soon enough.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has demanded that Israeli troops complete their withdrawal from the south of the country in accordance with the terms of a cease-fire agreement agreed by both sides, as the Israeli government says the agreement is not being implemented quickly enough.

Israel and an Iranian-allied group agreed in November to a ceasefire brokered by France and the United States, ending more than a year of fighting.

Under the agreement, Israeli forces were to withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah forces were to withdraw from southern Lebanon within a 60-day period ending Monday.

“There was a positive move when the Lebanese army and UNIFIL replaced the Hezbollah forces, as stated in the agreement,” Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters on Thursday, referring to the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Lebanon.

“We also made it clear that this organization was not fast enough, and there is still a lot of work to be done,” confirming that Israel wants the agreement to continue.

Menser did not directly respond to questions about whether Israel had asked for an extension of the agreement or whether Israeli troops would remain in Lebanon after the 60-day deadline.

Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said Israel’s ambassador to the US said Israel is in talks with President Donald Trump’s administration to convince the US to extend the deadline for at least another month.

“Israeli officials are talking about staying in Lebanon, which would violate the ceasefire agreement that will come out on January 26,” he said.

“Hezbollah indicates that it will start the war again. “It says that if the Israeli army is still there, they will be the ruling party and there will be ‘resistance’,” Khodr noted.

“Whether those threats are serious – considering that Hezbollah has been greatly weakened during the Israeli war – can be questioned,” he added.

Hezbollah said on Thursday that Israel must withdraw completely from Lebanon as the 60-day period of the ceasefire comes to an end and warned that any violation of the agreement will not be accepted.

“We need the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces,” French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this month, speaking to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut.

The Lebanese government also told American negotiators that Israel’s failure to withdraw on time could challenge the deployment of Lebanese troops, and this would be a blow to the efforts to communicate and the positive situation in Lebanon since Aoun was elected president on January 9.

Ali Fayyad, a Hezbollah lawyer, said on January 20 that if Israel fails to withdraw, this will put all Lebanese people in a new stage of “facing the Israeli occupation with all means and tools to force it to leave our country”.