Netanyahu Hails U.S.-Brokered Lebanon Framework as a Strategic Win

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference on Saturday night after a framework agreement was reached between Israel and Lebanon with American mediation. Under the understandings, Israel will partially withdraw from “pilot areas” in southern Lebanon, and those areas will come under the control of the Lebanese army. At the same time, the IDF will remain in most of the security buffer zone until the threat from Hezbollah is removed.

Netanyahu called the deal a “historic achievement” and said it was a “severe blow to Iran and Hezbollah.” He also said the Lebanese government had shown “great courage” and stressed that the United States played a central role in shaping the understandings. He displayed a map of the “yellow line,” which he said marks Israel’s security control area, and added, “Israel remains in the yellow area that protects us.”

The prime minister also used the briefing to address domestic politics ahead of the coming elections. He said he intends to work toward forming a “broad national government” and urged avoiding a “split in the nation” in favor of consensus on key issues. He also discussed ultra-Orthodox military enlistment and tensions over law enforcement, arguing that arrests could, in his view, push certain populations away from enlistment.

Netanyahu called for broad agreement on those matters and said a wider government would, in his view, provide internal stability, continue confronting the “Iranian terror axis,” and advance additional diplomatic moves in the region.