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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Katz: IDF will stay at 5 points in southern Lebanon regardless of border dispute talks

2025-03-16

[IsraelTimes] Defense minister says ‘indefinite’ stay is needed to protect northern residents, tells army to dig in for a long stint; IDF hits Hezbollah target in Beqaa Valley

Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that the Israel Defense Forces would remain deployed at five strategic points in southern Leb
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
"indefinitely," regardless of negotiations over 13 disputed points on the border.

During an assessment the day before with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and other top military officials, Katz "clarified that the IDF will remain at the five points that control the buffer zone in Lebanon, indefinitely, for the sake of protecting the residents of the north, and this is without any connection to future negotiations on points of dispute on the border," his office said in a statement Friday.

Katz instructed the IDF to fortify its positions at the five strategic points and prepare to stay there for a long period, his office added.

Israel and Lebanon held direct talks earlier in the week to resolve long-running issues about their shared border, and Israel returned five Lebanese prisoners it had arrested in the fighting in what Jerusalem said was a gesture of good will.

Israel has remained at the five points ever since a ceasefire began on November 27, 2024, halting more than a year of hostilities initiated by the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war during which Israel sent in ground troops across the northern border.

While an Israeli official has said the discussions aim to reach normalization of bilateral relations, a Lebanese source quoted by the pro-Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
al-Mayadeen channel has contended that ties with Israel are not on the table.

The fighting began with attacks by Hezbollah on the Jewish state on October 8, 2023, in support of Paleostinian ally Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
, which invaded southern Israel from Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
a day earlier. Persistent rocket fire from Lebanon displaced some 60,000 Israeli civilians.

The statement on Katz’s remarks came as the IDF confirmed carrying out an ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
against a Hezbollah "strategic weapons" manufacturing and storage facility in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley.

"The IDF will continue to work to remove any threat to the State of Israel," the military said.

The Hezbollah facility has been hit several times by the Israeli Air Force in recent months.

Under the US-mediated ceasefire, Israel was to gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah would move its forces from the border to be replaced by the Lebanese army. However,
corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds...
Israel has since accused Hezbollah of violating the terms by remaining in the border area and the Lebanese army of not properly deploying.

The IDF has carried out numerous strikes on Hezbollah targets, including some deep into Lebanese territory, a preventive right it says is enshrined in the ceasefire.

Meanwhile,
...back at the barn, Bossy's udder had begun to ache...
Lebanon named a new head of the armed forces to succeed Joseph Aoun, who was appointed president earlier this year.

"Brigadier General Rodolphe Haykal was named commander in chief of the armed forces," Minister of Information Paul Morcos said after a cabinet meeting, also confirming several other security appointments.

Haykal, 56, was made the army’s chief of operations last June, having previously served as the commander of the army sector south of the Litani River, according to the army’s website.

That area bore the brunt of the near-daily exchange of fire between Israel and the Hezbollah terror group during more than a year of hostilities that ended with the November 27 ceasefire.

Haykal is expected to play a key role in the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, a security source told AFP, adding that he was Aoun’s favored candidate for the post.

According to Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the army chief must be a Maronite Christian.

Morcos also announced earlier the appointment of the heads of the internal security, general security and state security apparatuses, as well as the approval of the defense ministry’s request to recruit 4,500 soldiers to reinforce troops in the south, where the army is deploying alongside UN peacekeepers as part of the ceasefire agreement.

Posted by:trailing wife

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