The White House said in a statement on Sunday that the understanding, overseeing which it is, would now run until February 18, 2025, after Israel failed to pull out before the expiration date. The White House, in a brief statement, said the agreement – which it is overseeing – would stand for the period.
The Biden administration also said it wanted to negotiate the freedom of Lebanese detainees who have been detained since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas against Israel that touched off the latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – the Iranian-backed guerrilla group headquartered in Lebanon – that up to now had essentially been limited to skirmishes.
But the statement did not tackle, indeed could not be expected to detail, the chances of a cease-fire, which now seems increasingly unlikely. The Lebanese health ministry said Israeli forces killed 22 people on Sunday, including six women, as they tried to make their way back to their villages.
Conspicuously absent from the White House statement was France, which, working in tandem with the US under then-President Joe Biden, had brokered a ceasefire on November 27 that ended Israel’s military operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Under the terms of the 60-day agreement, the Lebanese army is to be deployed alongside UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army pulls back. But Israel has signaled in recent days that it won’t meet that deadline, saying Lebanon’s fledgling army has failed to fulfill its own commitments under the accord.
Israeli military officials also described the moves on Sunday as tit-for-tat measures against people at an “imminent threat” against their soldiers, taking tensions in the highly volatile region up another notch.
