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Lebanon President Says Israel Deal First Step to Restoring Sovereignty

Israeli and Lebanese flags hang in a memorial site on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Saturday, June 27, 2026 after Israel and Lebanon sign a framework agreement, described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. (AP)
Israeli and Lebanese flags hang in a memorial site on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Saturday, June 27, 2026 after Israel and Lebanon sign a framework agreement, described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. (AP)
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Lebanon President Says Israel Deal First Step to Restoring Sovereignty

Israeli and Lebanese flags hang in a memorial site on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Saturday, June 27, 2026 after Israel and Lebanon sign a framework agreement, described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. (AP)
Israeli and Lebanese flags hang in a memorial site on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Saturday, June 27, 2026 after Israel and Lebanon sign a framework agreement, described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. (AP)

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said a deal signed with Israel on Friday was a first step towards fully restoring his country's sovereignty after the latest war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

"The framework agreement signed today is a first step" that will enable Lebanese "to return to their fully liberated lands, and to their certainly rebuilt homes... under the sovereignty of the Lebanese state that has no partner in its sovereignty over its land and people," Aoun said according to a statement released by his office.

"We swear to continue to work until this is fully achieved. There will be no more occupation, prisoners, subordination or tutelage," he added.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the agreement "aims to achieve Israel's withdrawal from all Lebanese territory, restore state sovereignty over it" and see the return of displaced Lebanese.

"I look forward to the blessed moment when Israel begins to withdraw -- so that our dear people can return to their homes with safety and dignity -- and to the launch" of reconstruction efforts, Salam added, according to a statement.

Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreement in Washington on Friday following several days of talks to secure an end to fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, though both sides framed the deal as an initial step.

"Today we've taken the first step in what will be a difficult journey, without a doubt, but an important and an essential and a necessary one," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said before the agreement was inked.

Rubio added that the agreement ‌establishes ⁠a clear process ⁠to restore Lebanon's sovereignty, disarm Hezbollah and dismantle ⁠its infrastructure.

Hezbollah supporters block the old airport road in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with burning tires to protest against the trilateral agreement that was signed between the US, Israel and Lebanon on June 27, 2026. (AFP)

In a later statement he said that the US would facilitate the implementation of the deal through a trilateral "Military Coordination ‌Group for Lebanon" ‌and that Washington would commit significant resources, including an immediate $100 million in humanitarian assistance in coordination with ‌the ⁠UN.

Rubio added that ⁠the US reaffirmed its intent to improve the capabilities of the Lebanese Armed Forces "to more effectively establish sovereignty throughout Lebanese territory" with more than $30 million in funds under existing US authorities and appropriations.

Hezbollah warning

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah warned that Lebanese officials who signed the agreement with Israel could not enforce the deal without sparking a civil war.

Lebanese "authorities will be unable to impose the implementation of the agreement signed in Washington unless they go, with American support, to civil war," said Fadlallah, whose party has long rejected the direct Israel-Lebanon talks.

He added that "what happened in Washington is an attempt to disrupt the Islamabad path, and without the resistance (Hezbollah) nothing will pass," referring to the initial agreement between the US and Iran on halting the Middle East war, which includes Lebanon.

After the announcement of the agreement, Hezbollah supporters took to the streets of Beirut late Friday in protest.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that "Hezbollah supporters rode motorbikes through the streets of Beirut" including central areas and along a road leading to the airport "in protest at the framework agreement announced between Lebanon and Israel".

Footage circulating on local outlets and social media showed hundreds of Hezbollah supporters on motorbikes and mopeds roaming Beirut's southern suburbs, the group's stronghold, before they headed to the heart of the capital.

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Arab World

UN Identifies 214 Firms Linked to Israeli Settlements

Palestinians protest against Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)
Palestinians protest against Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)
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UN Identifies 214 Firms Linked to Israeli Settlements

Palestinians protest against Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)
Palestinians protest against Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)

The United Nations on Friday released a fresh update of its database of companies with activities in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, listing 214 firms from 11 countries.

Since last year's update, the UN rights office added an additional 61 companies to the database and had removed five companies.

But major firms like Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and TripAdviser remained on the list.

The report, which was harshly criticized by Israel, served as a "reminder to companies that they have human rights responsibilities", UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

Firms, he said, "are expected to conduct due diligence to ensure that they do not become involved in human rights violations or abuses".

While most of the companies were based in Israel, others were based in Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Britain and the United States.

There were two Spanish companies removed from the database since last year, along with one each from Canada, Israel and Portugal.

The list was first produced in 2020 after a UN Human Rights Council resolution called for a database of firms that profited from business in illegally occupied Palestinian territory.

The UN rights office was asked to list companies found to be taking part in any of 10 activities, including construction, surveillance, demolitions and destruction of agricultural land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Despite a requirement for the database to be updated annually, it has been revised just twice before, in 2023 and 2025.

The list is not exhaustive.

It only reviews companies about which it received submissions during set timeframes, the last of which closed in June 2024.

In all, it has received submissions about 596 companies, of which it has so far reviewed 381.

Israel, which has been harshly critical of the database from the start, slammed it again Friday as "a distorted mechanism... established solely to persecute the Jewish state".

The country's mission to the UN in Geneva charged that it was "a political tool" used by the rights office "to advance a smear campaign against business enterprises that committed no wrongdoing".

Israel has controlled the West Bank since 1967 in an occupation considered illegal under international law.

 

 

 

 

Arab World

Lebanon PM Stresses Need to 'Avert Vacuum' if UN Force Leaves

16 February 2026, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is pictured during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office. (dpa)
16 February 2026, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is pictured during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office. (dpa)
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Lebanon PM Stresses Need to 'Avert Vacuum' if UN Force Leaves

16 February 2026, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is pictured during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office. (dpa)
16 February 2026, Lebanon, Beirut: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is pictured during a meeting at the Prime Minister's office. (dpa)

Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam insisted at the UN Friday on the need to "avert the vacuum" that would be caused by withdrawing the UN peacekeeping mission deployed in the south of his country without a viable replacement.

"What we wish to stress here and today is the need to avert the vacuum that UNIFIL's withdrawal could create, were it to take place without agreement on a new international force to replace it," he said.

Arab World

South Lebanon Children Return to School Destroyed by Israel Strike

Displaced children play during an activity organized by the NGO Save the Children at a school turned into a shelter for displaced families in Tyre, southern Lebanon, August 27, 2026. (Reuters)
Displaced children play during an activity organized by the NGO Save the Children at a school turned into a shelter for displaced families in Tyre, southern Lebanon, August 27, 2026. (Reuters)
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South Lebanon Children Return to School Destroyed by Israel Strike

Displaced children play during an activity organized by the NGO Save the Children at a school turned into a shelter for displaced families in Tyre, southern Lebanon, August 27, 2026. (Reuters)
Displaced children play during an activity organized by the NGO Save the Children at a school turned into a shelter for displaced families in Tyre, southern Lebanon, August 27, 2026. (Reuters)

In southern Lebanon, eight-year-old Yara Ajami started the academic year this week in a doorless, windowless classroom after her school was destroyed by an Israeli strike.

Well known in the area for its excellence, Ajami's elementary school in Burj Qalaway was struck by Israel in May.

"We are happy to be back (to school), but we were happier before. We used to draw, play, but now there are no desks or chairs," the young girl with braided hair said as she climbed a bare concrete staircase.

Rather than go to their old school building, Ajami and the other students returning to classes after the summer break on Monday were diverted to a nearby structure still under construction that was being built to house preschoolers.

The sun shone through unglazed windows into unfinished classrooms as children followed their lessons, while outside clumps of twisted rebar jutted from the ground like dead bushes where walls used to stand.

The students come from areas heavily hit by Israeli attacks and most were displaced during the war, with some -- like Ajami -- returning to find their homes damaged or destroyed.

- 'Sadness in their eyes' -

"There is sadness in their eyes, each one of them has a story," school principal May Mehdi told AFP from the courtyard.

"But I am happy they are here," she said, showing on her phone what the school, her pride, once looked like.

Mehdi does not have an office in the current building, which does not even have a teacher's lounge.

Around 250 students are registered in the 24-classroom school, which used to have at least 600 school-goers before the start of the latest war in March, when Hezbollah attacked Israel in support of Tehran, following US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Israel responded with major airstrikes and a ground invasion that killed more than 4,300 people, including 261 children according to Lebanese authorities.

More than a million people were displaced, but more than 800,000 returned since June, when a US-Iran memorandum of understanding and a Lebanon-Israel framework agreement significantly reduced the violence.

In some schools in the south that have been converted into shelters, displaced people and students now share the space, with floors reserved for each group.

The Israeli army has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of using civilian buildings, including schools, to launch attacks or hide weapons.

Rights groups, however, have accused Israel of possible war crimes in its war with Hezbollah.

Lebanese authorities accuse Israel of systematically destroying villages in the south, including homes, schools, places of worship and water and electricity infrastructure.

- 'Destruction, insecurity, displacement' -

Many of Burj Qalaway's children were unable to start the school year, being still displaced or fearing to return to the town, less than a kilometre (mile) away from Israeli troops occupying a swathe of the south.

On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit Qantara, a nearby village.

Earlier this month, UNICEF said that nearly 100,000 students in Lebanon were unable to return to their schools for the academic year due to "damage, destruction, insecurity, or displacement".

The UNICEF report also stated that 436 schools were damaged by the war, while 37 were completely destroyed.

The Burj Qalaway school previously boasted a laboratory, a computer room, and an interactive room.

Government-funded prefabricated units are being installed on the school premises where rubble has not yet been cleared.

- 'Make my father proud' -

Teacher Hoda Najdi gave her class while emphasizing to her students the importance of continuing their education and achieving good results despite the difficult circumstances.

"My home was destroyed and so was my school... (but) the students give us the strength and will to continue," the 42-year-old told AFP.

Student Mohammed Mozannar, who was displaced from one place to another in Beirut during the war, said he was "very happy to be back to make up for" the lost year.

"I had no books, no phone and no internet" to follow lessons online, he said.

"I now want to make my father proud."

But the return to school also brought back painful memories for some, like 14-year-old Rawan Fakih.

"I remembered the activities we used to do, I remembered how stressful exams were... and I remembered my friend who was killed" by an Israeli strike, she said.