An Israeli military official told ABC News on Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces “will adjust its force posture” in one of the south Lebanon villages earmarked for a U.S.-backed pilot scheme, through which the Lebanese military will take control of the villages and clear them of Hezbollah presence and weapons.
The Lebanese Armed Forces will take control of three villages in the south of the country under the program, which was agreed during U.S.-brokered talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials last month.
The IDF, the Israeli military official said, will continue “safeguarding the security of IDF soldiers and preserving its right to self-defense and to remove threats.”
The IDF, they added, will remain in southern Lebanon “for as long as necessary to defend the communities of northern Israel” and will “retain the freedom of operation to remove threats posed to the soldiers deployed in the Security Zone,” a reference to a 6-mile-deep area along the shared border which Israeli forces have occupied.
“In the event of any violations of the agreement by the Hezbollah terrorist organization, the IDF will work through the coordination mechanism, mediated by the United States,” the official said. “The objective of the pilot and the agreement is the disarmament of the Hezbollah terrorist organization and the removal of its illegal weapons,” they added.
The LAF said in a post to X on Tuesday that its forces had begun deploying to the village of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, in the southern Nabatieh Governorate.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller and Othon Leyva
