Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that three people were killed in an Israeli attack on a car in Nabatieh.
Three people were killed and one injured in an Israeli attack on a car on the road between Zawtar and Mayfdoun in the Nabatieh governorate on Thursday, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA).
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NNA also reported that Israeli forces burned down several houses in the town of Ain Arab, after issuing a warning forcing residents to evacuate the town before 5 pm on Wednesday.
According to Lebanon’s Public Health Ministry, 4,230 people have been killed and 12,179 others injured since the conflict began on March 2.
Reporting from Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah remains “fragile” as Israeli forces continue to target “anyone or anything in front-line villages”.
“(These are) villages located on the outskirts of the city of Nabatieh, which border the area that is occupied by Israel,” Khodr said. “So the message is that they don’t want people to go to that area, there have been drone strikes, they have dropped stun grenades…people have died.
“The Israeli army was not able to capture those villages during weeks of fighting and it still wants to be able to control them with fire because the more territory you control, the more leverage you have in negotiations,” he said. He said Lebanese and Israeli officials were discussing a possible and gradual transfer of the territory.
ceasefire talks
Israel and Lebanon have been discussing the United States-backed resolution for the past three days, with talks set to conclude in Washington DC on Thursday. The talks are focused on Israeli forces handing over to the Lebanese army some of the areas they captured during the fighting with Hezbollah.
A US State Department official told Reuters news agency that Israel had taken a “concrete step” towards the resolution, which was part of the latest round of talks, by withdrawing from a part of the buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
However, a senior Israeli defense official denied that any withdrawal had taken place, saying that Israel would not withdraw from its buffer zone.
Additionally, a senior Lebanese military official also told Reuters that developments on the ground in recent days showed “the opposite of a pullback.”
Still, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that Israel and Lebanon were making good progress toward a “commitment of intent.”
“I think we are very close to our expectations of achieving a commitment of intent between the two countries,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to Bahrain.
“It will be a process, it will take some time, it will take a lot of work, but I can tell you that for the first time in 30 years, the sovereign government of Lebanon is talking directly to the government of Israel.”
Under US pressure, Lebanese officials began direct negotiations with Israel in Washington in April.
However, Hezbollah has condemned the Lebanon-Israel talks and demanded the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon first.
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