The Hebrew “Walla” website saw that the framework agreement signed between Lebanon and Israel in Washington is based on what it described as an “impossible mission,” in reference to the clause of disarming Hezbollah, which, according to the report, constitutes the core of the agreement and the most difficult test for its implementation on the ground.
According to the website, the agreement stipulates the establishment of a new American mechanism, and the launch of experimental areas from which Israeli forces will gradually withdraw, with the Lebanese army assuming security responsibility there, in exchange for a commitment to prevent Hezbollah’s return to these areas and work to completely disarm it.
The report indicated that the agreement quickly collided with the Lebanese reality, after Hezbollah’s positions rejecting any attempt targeting its weapons or imposing security arrangements that it did not approve of, which revealed, according to the site, the wide gap between the political understandings announced in Washington and the field realities in southern Lebanon.
On the other hand, Israeli officials confirm, according to Walla, that the Israeli army’s presence in the border areas will continue unless Hezbollah’s military structure is dismantled, and that any withdrawal will not be linked to fixed timetables, but rather to achieving clear field results.
According to the report, the agreement talks about two test areas, the first south of the Litani River, and the second north of it, where Israeli forces are supposed to gradually withdraw in exchange for testing the Lebanese army’s ability to impose its control and prevent the return of any Hezbollah activity, with the model being expanded if it succeeds.
The website quoted the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Yehiel Leiter, as describing the agreement as “performance-based,” considering that the pace of withdrawal will be determined according to the extent to which the areas are removed from Hezbollah’s influence, adding that “Iran is outside the equation, Hezbollah is on its way out, and the Lebanese army is on its way in.”
This Israeli reading comes in light of the continuing tension on the southern border, and amid widespread doubts about the agreement’s ability to move from paper to implementation, especially since the Hezbollah weapons file has remained for years one of the most complex internal issues in Lebanon, and successive governments have failed to address it within a comprehensive national consensus.
Thus, the “Walla” report reflects the size of the Israeli bet on transforming the agreement into a security path that changes the balance of the south, but at the same time it acknowledges that the success of this path is linked to a very complex condition, which is the ability of the Lebanese state to impose a new reality in a region that is still governed by highly sensitive internal and regional balances.
