Israel and Hezbollah appeared to maintain a tense cease-fire in Lebanon for a second day on Monday, as mediators in the U.S.-Iran talks announced a mechanism aimed at ensuring the truce holds, and Israeli troops operated under new orders designed to lower the risk of flare-ups.
Israel’s top diplomat, however, warned that the country would not withdraw its forces from the self-declared “security zone” it has established in Lebanon up to about six miles north of the border.
“Israel will respect the cease-fire in Lebanon as long as it won’t be breached by Hezbollah,” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote in a social-media post on Monday. “We don’t have territorial ambitions in Lebanon, but we will not withdraw from the security zone and expose our citizens to Hezbollah’s attacks and possible invasion.”
Mr. Saar’s post came hours after Pakistan and Qatar, the mediators in the U.S.-Iran talks, announced an agreement to create a “de-confliction cell” to ensure the “adherence of the termination of military operations in Lebanon.” It would include representatives from Iran, the United States and Lebanon.
The quiet on the Lebanon front was still settling in after a furious round of hostilities on Friday and Saturday that began when four Israeli soldiers, including a battalion commander, were killed when their tank exploded.
A fifth soldier was killed in the same area on Saturday, setting off waves of Israeli retaliatory strikes. The military said Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, had launched more than 50 rockets targeting its soldiers operating in southern Lebanon.
The fighting centered around the area of Tebnit and nearby Ali al-Taher, a strategic ridgeline overlooking the large city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military recently issued an updated map of its security zone that placed Tebnit and Ali al-Taher just within the area under Israeli control.
That appeared to be more than coincidental.
The Israeli military said that Ali al-Taher was the location of a fortified underground Hezbollah stronghold that has long served as the militia’s southern headquarters from which it directed fire against Israeli forces and communities in northern Israel.
Should the militants inside try to leave that stronghold without surrendering, it could pose a threat to the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire.
Cease-fires in Lebanon have been declared, broken and reinstated numerous times in recent weeks, but the fighting has persisted amid disagreements over what constitutes defensive actions by Israeli forces.
An Israeli military statement on Monday said that it had gained control of the area of the Hezbollah compound and encircled it, adding that “dozens of Hezbollah operatives are currently trapped with no ability to exit.”
Hezbollah said on Saturday that it had attacked Israeli forces advancing toward Ali al-Taher.
Later on Saturday, the Israeli military said it had received “updated directives” from the country’s political leaders and would no longer be “conducting proactive strikes” in Lebanon. The military reserved the right to respond if Hezbollah did not abide by the cease-fire and targeted Israeli troops or civilians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted in a video statement Monday that his directive to the military, and that of the defense minister, remained clear and unchanged: “Our fighters in southern Lebanon have full operational freedom to thwart any direct or emergent threat against them or residents of the north.”
He did not address whether the military had been ordered to refrain from offensive action, and a spokesman would not elaborate.
Israeli commanders received new orders on Saturday restricting them to defensive actions in Lebanon, stating that troops may only fire to counter an immediate threat unless authorized by the military’s chief of staff.
The new orders specifically bar Israeli soldiers from firing warning shots at civilians attempting to return to southern Lebanon unless they get too close to the soldiers, according to two Israeli officials who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The orders also bar Israeli soldiers from blowing up homes and other infrastructure inside the security zone without the approval of senior officers, the officials said.
Spokesmen for the military did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Monday.
Sarit Zehavi, president of the Alma Research and Education Center, which focuses on Israel’s northern border, said she feared that the ban on offensive operations would put Israeli soldiers in the position of having to be responsive rather than proactive.
“On the ground, it takes time till you understand what’s a threat,” she said. “This will eventually cost the lives of soldiers.”
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