...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?..."agreed on the structure and guidelines" for implementing the pilot zones, a US official said.
A Lebanese military source told AFP that the army had begun intensifying patrols in several villages adjacent to areas held by Israeli forces, including Froun in the Bint Jbeil district, in preparation for implementing the pilot zones provision.
Hezbollah held a rally in the coastal city of Tyre on Saturday to reiterate its rejection of the plan.
On Saturday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported fresh
...
KABOOM!...
s against two towns located on the edge of the security zone, in the Tyre and Nabatieh regions, and a large detonation near the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah.
The Lebanese military said that a soldier was killed, and an officer and another soldier were maimed, "as a result of the earth-shattering kaboom of a suspicious object in an army vehicle" in Mansouri, which was also subjected to several Israeli strikes. However,
a woman is only as old as she admits...
the Israeli army said that the bomb had been planted by Hezbollah.Following an examination, "it was determined that the bomb was not an IDF device, but rather one that was apparently planted by the Hezbollah terror organization," it said, adding that Israeli troops had not been present in Mansouri recently, despite it being located within the IDF’s security zone. The Lebanese army vehicle had entered the security zone without prior coordination with the IDF as required, the military said.
The IDF said it was calling on Lebanese civilians and forces "to avoid entering locations where Hezbollah continues to pose a threat, and to coordinate movements in advance as customary, for their own safety."
The IDF said separately that it had struck and killed a cell of Hezbollah operatives piloting a drone over an area of southern Lebanon where Israeli troops are operating. The IDF said troops of the Commando Brigade spotted an enemy drone over Kfar Tebnit earlier Saturday. The Israeli Air Force then launched searches in the area and identified several Hezbollah operatives who were operating the drone while hiding near the security zone. The IAF then struck and killed the Hezbollah operatives "to remove the threat to our forces," the army said.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun left Beirut on Saturday for Washington, where he is expected to meet Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
, his office said, after the latest round of Lebanon-Israel talks wrapped up in Italia.
It will be the first trip to Washington by a Lebanese head of state since Michel Suleiman
...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too...
was received by Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...
in 2009.
Aoun will hold discussions "with several American officials on the situation in Lebanon and ways to strengthen the ceasefire," particularly in the south, as well as on "the withdrawal of Israel from the Lebanese regions it occupies," the presidency said.
Israel and Lebanon — which do not have formal diplomatic relations — began US-sponsored negotiations in April aimed at reaching a peace deal and permanently ending the Israel-Hezbollah war.
On June 26, they reached a framework agreement in Washington under which the Israeli military is to withdraw from southern Lebanon and the Lebanese army is to deploy, starting with two "pilot zones."
The agreement is contingent on the disarmament of Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, which has flatly rejected the deal and the Israel-Lebanon negotiations.
Following the latest round of talks this week in Rome, Israel and Lebanon "agreed on the structure and guidelines" for implementing the pilot zones, a US official said.