Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF will remain in security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza without a deadline, even as Iranian and Lebanese officials describe Lebanon as part of the U.S.-Iran memorandum.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Israel said Monday it will not withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, directly challenging reported provisions in the U.S.-Iran peace framework that Iranian and Lebanese officials say include Lebanon as part of the agreement.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel’s military will remain in security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza indefinitely, arguing that the deployments are necessary to protect Israeli communities from jihadist threats.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I are leading a clear policy that determines that the IDF will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, without any time limit, to protect the border and Israeli communities from there against jihadist elements,” Katz said Monday.
“We will not compromise on Israel’s security interests and the protection of our citizens, and we will not withdraw from the security zones,” Katz said. “If Iran attacks Israel because of the events in Lebanon, we will strike it with full force.”
Katz said Israel would continue with plans to clear a buffer zone of civilian residents before destroying “all terror infrastructure, above and below ground, including the houses in the contact-line villages that served as terror outposts.”
“We oppose an IDF withdrawal from Lebanon – despite all current and future pressures,” Katz said. “Prime Minister Netanyahu made these points clear to US President Trump and to other senior American officials, and I also made this clear yesterday to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.”
Netanyahu did not immediately issue a public statement on the U.S.-Iran agreement, but other Israeli officials sharply criticized any deal that could restrict Israel’s military operations in Lebanon.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Israel would not be bound by the Trump administration’s agreement with Iran.
“Trump’s agreement does not bind us,” Ben Gvir said. “Israel is not subordinate to the United States. We are an independent and sovereign country.”
“We are not partners to this agreement, which does not safeguard our security. We must not withdraw from any territory that our fighters have captured,” he said.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, now considered a leading candidate to return to Israel’s top office, criticized Netanyahu from a different direction, saying the prime minister had failed to achieve Israel’s objectives quickly enough in Lebanon.
Bennett said Netanyahu had drawn Israel into wars of “stagnation and attrition” in Lebanon and Gaza, where he said the government was “incapable of achieving a decisive victory.”
Bennett and other opposition leaders said Israel should remain focused on dismantling Iran’s regime and Hezbollah’s operations in Lebanon regardless of the terms of Trump’s agreement. They said Israel should reject any arrangement that does not address its security interests.
The dispute followed reports that Trump was frustrated with Israel after it launched airstrikes on Hezbollah-controlled suburbs of Lebanon while U.S. negotiators were finalizing the agreement with Iran. Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reported that Trump told Netanyahu not to launch further strikes and promised that he would “ask Iran not to respond with missile fire toward Israel.”
“This morning’s attack on Beirut should not have happened, particularly on a special day when we are so close to a Peace Deal with Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Iran reportedly insisted that Lebanon be included in any U.S.-Iran peace deal, a demand that would protect Hezbollah from further Israeli action. Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency reported Monday that Tehran called off a planned missile attack on Israel only after Trump, communicating through Qatari mediators, offered “last-minute concessions, including speeding up the end of the naval blockade.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Monday that Lebanon’s “national sovereignty” was “one of the main pillars of the memorandum of understanding agreed with the United States.”
“No agreement will be sustainable without comprehensive guarantees of Lebanon’s security and territorial independence,” Baghaei said.
“I’d like to express my condolences to the entire Lebanese people. We adopt our decision according to certain measurements because of these terrorist attacks from the Zionist entity against Lebanon,” he added.
The New York Times reported Sunday that Israel was not directly involved in the negotiations. The newspaper said early details indicated the agreement did not restrict Iran’s ballistic missile program or its support for regional proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
“Israel was not directly involved in the negotiations,” the New York Times reported. “Initial details suggest that the agreement does nothing to curb Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, or its funding of regional proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, who have attacked Israel with their own arsenals.”
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Monday that he hoped the U.S.-Iran agreement would produce “concrete measures that put a definitive end to the cycle of violence.”
“I welcome what this memorandum contains regarding respect for Lebanon’s particularity and the recognition that Lebanon’s stability and security are an integral part of any serious effort to establish stability in the region, after the sacrifices and heavy burdens borne by the Lebanese during the past period,” Aoun said.
The competing statements point to a major unresolved question inside the U.S.-Iran framework: whether provisions involving Lebanon can be implemented if Israel refuses to withdraw from areas it says are necessary for its security.
For now, Israeli officials are making clear they do not view the agreement as binding on Israel and intend to continue holding security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza despite pressure from Washington, Tehran or Beirut.
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