Stephanie Rady<\/p>\n
26 June 2026\u2022Update: 26 June 2026<\/p>\n
A complete Israeli withdrawal from all Lebanese territory must be included in any “declaration of principles” that could emerge from ongoing negotiations in Washington, a senior Lebanese official said Friday.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Anadolu on condition of anonymity, the official said the Lebanese delegation remains committed to securing a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon under a defined timetable.<\/p>\n
“The insistence on a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory according to a timetable, and Lebanon’s adherence to this position, led to the extension of the negotiations by an additional day,” the source said.<\/p>\n
Early Friday, the US State Department announced that the fifth round of Lebanon-Israel talks had been extended by one day after originally being scheduled to conclude on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Lebanese official stressed that “the withdrawal from all Lebanese territory must be a fundamental element of the declaration of principles should one be reached.”<\/p>\n
Addressing proposals involving “model” or “pilot” areas, the source said Lebanon is seeking a precise definition of the areas from which Israeli forces would withdraw.<\/p>\n
He explained that Lebanon stipulates that these areas must be “within the Yellow Line for the Lebanese army to enter and not areas where the Israelis are not present.”<\/p>\n
The Yellow Line is an unofficial line extending roughly 8 kilometers inside Lebanese territory from the border.<\/p>\n
Israel refuses to withdraw from areas within the Yellow Line and insists on maintaining its presence at the Beaufort Castle (Qalaat al-Shaqif) position in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, some for decades and others seized during the 2023-2024 war.<\/p>\n
Since March 2, 2026, Israeli aggressions in Lebanon has killed 4,230 people and injured 12,179 others, while displacing more than 1 million people, according to official Lebanese figures.<\/p>\n
*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephanie Rady 26 June 2026\u2022Update: 26 June 2026 A complete Israeli withdrawal from all Lebanese territory must be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-511915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}