WASHINGTON — Israel asked the Trump administration on Monday for another extension to the deadline for the IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon, but won’t get it, a US official told The Times of Israel.
The response from Washington is that for now, it plans to stick to the February 18 deadline, said the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday to discuss the matter.
US deputy Mideast envoy Morgan Ortagus traveled to Lebanon, and then Israel, over the weekend to survey the progress of the US-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that ended the war that spiraled from border attacks by the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group. Ortagus told reporters that the Trump administration views February 18 as a “firm date” for the completion of Israel’s withdrawal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked US President Donald Trump to support a further extension of the IDF’s deployment in Lebanon, Channel 12 reported Monday.
According to the report, Israel is seeking to keep an IDF presence at five key border points to enable the maintenance of a buffer zone.
The report said that Israel has reiterated to the US its claim that the Lebanese Army is not effectively deployed in south Lebanon, as the terms of the ceasefire said it would, and is not preventing Hezbollah from reorganizing. Israel has warned that Hezbollah aims to return to the border area as soon as IDF troops depart.
UNIFIL vehicles drive past the rubble of buildings in the southern Lebanese village of Yarin on February 9, 2025. (Mahmoud ZAYYAT / AFP)
The ceasefire inked by the Biden administration in late November was originally supposed to see an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon by late January. Two days before that deadline, Netanyahu said that Israel would not be withdrawing by that date, accusing Lebanon of not meeting its obligations under the agreement.
Hours before the deadline was set to expire, the US announced an extension until February 18, maintaining that the southern Lebanese army had yet to sufficiently deploy in lieu of the IDF to ensure that Hezbollah could not regain a foothold along Israel’s northern border. Both Israel and Lebanon agreed to the new date.
Under the terms of the original deal, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in the south alongside UN peacekeepers as Israel withdrew over 60 days. Hezbollah was also to pull back north of the Litani River — about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border — and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel’s military says its forces have continued to uncover and seize Hezbollah weapons in prohibited areas and that the Lebanese army is not keeping its part of the deal.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel is entitled to act against immediate threats posed by Hezbollah but must forward complaints about longer-term threats to an oversight committee composed of representatives from the US, France, Lebanon and the international observer force UNIFIL.
The November 27 deal ended two months of full-scale war that followed months of lower-intensity exchanges. Hezbollah began near-daily attacks on northern Israel one day after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by its Palestinian ally Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Israeli residents of the north were displaced by the attacks, with rocket fire eventually spreading to the center of the country.
Israel intensified its campaign against Hezbollah in September, launching a series of devastating blows against the group’s leadership and killing its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon aimed at securing the border and enabling the return of displaced Israelis.
A man stands near a damaged gate after a Hezbollah rocket strike on a soccer field that killed 12 children in Majdal Shams on July 28, 2024. (Menahem Kahana / AFP)
Israel insists that Hezbollah be kept away from the boundary between the two countries in order to make the region safe for its northern border residents.
Like this patron Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah all avowedly seek the destruction of Israel.
Agencies contributed to this report.
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