Berri: Lebanon Refuses Israeli Demand to Stay in Five Southern Locations After Feb. 18

 A military bulldozer opens a road after army deployment, for the residents of the Lebanese southern village of Rabb Thlathin to return to their town on February 9, 2025. (AFP)
A military bulldozer opens a road after army deployment, for the residents of the Lebanese southern village of Rabb Thlathin to return to their town on February 9, 2025. (AFP)
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Berri: Lebanon Refuses Israeli Demand to Stay in Five Southern Locations After Feb. 18

 A military bulldozer opens a road after army deployment, for the residents of the Lebanese southern village of Rabb Thlathin to return to their town on February 9, 2025. (AFP)
A military bulldozer opens a road after army deployment, for the residents of the Lebanese southern village of Rabb Thlathin to return to their town on February 9, 2025. (AFP)

Lebanon's powerful parliament speaker Nabih Berri said on Thursday that Beirut rejected Israel's demand to remain in five locations in the south after the deadline for fully implementing a fragile ceasefire deal next week.

Israel's public broadcaster said on Wednesday the US had authorized a "long term" Israeli troop presence in southern Lebanon, after sources told Reuters Israel had sought an extension to a Feb. 18 deadline to withdraw its forces.

Under a truce deal brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah since early October.

Hezbollah combatants were to leave the zone and Lebanese troops were to deploy in the area within the same period.

The initial deadline has already been extended from January 26 until February 18. A Lebanese official and a foreign diplomat in Lebanon told Reuters on Wednesday that Israel had now asked to remain in five posts in the south for a further 10 days.

Israeli public broadcaster KAN later cited senior officials in Israel's security cabinet as saying that the US had granted Israeli troops permission to stay "in several locations" in Lebanon beyond February 18. It did not specify a new deadline.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The US, Israel's closest military ally, chairs a committee that oversees the implementation of the Lebanon ceasefire.

Later on Wednesday, Israel military jets broke the sound barrier over the Lebanese capital Beirut for the first time since the ceasefire was agreed.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, but the head of the Israeli military's Northern Command said he believed the terms of the deal would be executed.

"I think we will indeed reposition ourselves next week and the agreement will be implemented," Major General Ori Gordon said on Wednesday, according to Israel's GLZ radio.

Israel's military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X on Wednesday that Israeli troops remained in Lebanon after the first extension, and ordered Lebanese citizens not to return to their homes in the country's south "until further notice".

In a written statement, Lebanon's presidency denied reports that Beirut had agreed to a second extension and said President Joseph Aoun had "repeatedly stressed Lebanon's insistence on the complete withdrawal" of Israeli troops by Feb. 18.

The ceasefire deal ended more than a year of conflict between Israel's military and Hezbollah that was playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.

The fighting peaked in a major Israeli air and ground campaign that uprooted more than a million people in Lebanon and left the Iranian-backed Hezbollah badly weakened, with most of its military command killed in Israeli strikes.

Israeli forces have remained in parts of southern Lebanon and its air force has continued to carry out strikes across the country on what it says are Hezbollah weapons stores or attempts by the group to smuggle arms.

Hezbollah has said it does not accept Israel's justifications for staying in Lebanon and has urged Lebanon's government to ensure the troops leave. The group has not explicitly threatened to resume fighting.



Israel Is Ramping up Annexation of West Bank, UN Rights Chief Says 

Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
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Israel Is Ramping up Annexation of West Bank, UN Rights Chief Says 

Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)
Israeli army vehicles block a road during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 March 2025. (EPA)

Israel has significantly expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the State of Israel, in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.

The report to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council later this month comes amid growing fears of annexation amid US policy shifts under President Donald Trump and new settler outposts in areas of the West Bank seen as part of a future Palestinian state.

"The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime," UN High Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement accompanying the report, urging the international community to take meaningful action on Israel’s advancing settlement.

"Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers," he said.

Israel disengaged from the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year, alleging a chronic anti-Israeli bias. Its military says it is conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and targeting suspected militants.