Israel leaves troops in five Lebanese sites as withdrawal deadline expires

# Israel leaves troops in five Lebanese sites as withdrawal deadline expires

Event date: 2025-02-18. Israel has begun a partial pullback from southern Lebanon but says its forces will stay in five strategic locations, a decision that Lebanon calls an occupation and that threatens to keep the ceasefire with Hezbollah under strain.

The evidence packet says the Israeli army moved on Tuesday morning but confirmed it would remain at five hilltop positions to provide vantage points and protection for communities in northern Israel. Lebanese leaders had demanded a full withdrawal by the deadline and said Israel was violating the truce agreement.

The withdrawal deadline had already been extended from January 26 to Tuesday after Israel refused to comply fully. Lebanon’s army reported that Israeli forces were still present in about a dozen villages and border areas earlier in the day, while civil defence teams later recovered 23 bodies from several border towns.

The ceasefire itself was brokered by the United States and France in November after months of cross-border fighting. Under the deal, Lebanon’s army was supposed to deploy in the south alongside UN peacekeepers as Israel withdrew over 60 days, while Hezbollah was to move north of the Litani River and dismantle its military infrastructure there.

The packet says the Israeli refusal to leave all positions adds more uncertainty to a fragile deal that has already been marked by sporadic attacks. It also notes that the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project recorded 330 Israeli air raids and shellings between November 27 and January 10, along with 260 property destructions.

Lebanese officials are now asking the United Nations Security Council to force Israel to comply fully, while Beirut has also been in contact with France and the United States. The president’s office said Joseph Aoun met with the prime minister and parliament speaker to discuss the violations.

Israel, for its part, insists it is acting to keep northern communities safe. Defence Minister Israel Katz said the army has erected new posts on the Israeli side of the border and sent reinforcements, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would do what it must to enforce the ceasefire and that Hezbollah must be disarmed.

The humanitarian picture remains grim. The packet says about 100,000 people remain internally displaced in Lebanon and reconstruction costs could exceed $10 billion. That means every delay in the withdrawal risks prolonging an already severe recovery problem.

The immediate diplomatic question is whether the five remaining locations are a temporary security posture or the start of a longer Israeli foothold. The packet does not settle that question, but it makes plain that the ceasefire now rests on a narrow and contested reading of what withdrawal means.