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With the deadline looming for the terms of a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah to be met, an American diplomat on Monday said “much progress” had been made recently.
A top U.S. envoy who helped broker the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah issued reassurance on Monday that Israel would withdraw fully from southern Lebanon, as called for in the fragile 60-day truce deal that paused the bloodiest war between the two sides in decades.
Speaking to reporters in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, the envoy, Amos Hochstein, said that Israeli troops had pulled out on Monday from the southern town of Naqoura. In a statement, the Lebanese military said it had redeployed in the town, after the Israeli withdrawal.
“These withdrawals will continue until Israeli forces are fully out of Lebanon,” Mr. Hochstein said after meeting with senior Lebanese officials. “There’s been much progress in recent days, and I expect to see additional progress being made in the days to come.”
Although the truce reached in late November continues to hold, there is growing frustration among Lebanese and Israeli officials about the pace at which the cease-fire agreement is being carried out, with the deadline fast approaching for the terms to be fulfilled.
Mr. Hochstein did not specify when Israeli troops would withdraw completely from Lebanon, and it remains uncertain whether the cease-fire agreement will be fully in place by the end of the 60-day period.
The deal ended a 14-month conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a powerful militant group in Lebanon that began firing rockets into Israel in support of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran, part of its network of regional proxies.
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