Beirut hopes to gain Trump support to bring 'normality' back to south Lebanon

Lebanon's military deploying to the first of three so-called pilot zones in southern Lebanon, part of a U.S. broker deal where Israel pulls back. All this on the day where Donald Trump is due to welcome his Lebanese counterpart Joseph Aoun later to the White House. For more, let's cross to Beirut and correspondent Renee Davis. Renee, what's the latest on the situation in the south? Well, just yesterday early evening was the announcement of the first pilot zones to be evacuated by the Israeli army within the framework agreement brokered by the U.S. Now, a pilot zone, what exactly is it? It's an area of southern Lebanon that's occupied by Israel, but the plan is for Israel to withdraw the Lebanese army to take over and disarm Hezbollah. So what we've seen today is the first pilot zone, Veldad Harbiyeh, was set for the Israelis to withdraw. Now, we've just had reports just a short while ago that Lebanese army entering the site were virtually shot at by the Israeli army. That's what the Lebanese army posted on their Twitter account just a short while ago. And there's definitely a huge hastiness in this movement to evacuate these villages of southern Lebanon. Just yesterday evening, I spoke to the mayor of Veldad Harbiyeh, the pilot zone in question, who told me that he wasn't even informed of this decision. He had to find out by me. So that's just, you know, there's a very, a distance between the information here, between the local authorities, national authorities, and of course, the U.S. State Department. So we're seeing all of these, this unravel in south Lebanon in a very hasty fashion. Yeah. And before that social media post by the Lebanese military, you had the mayors down there urging residents not to return yet. There has been continued strikes in southern Lebanon, especially around the Vintajbeil area, continued detonations of dynamite. So I've actually just speaking to some locals from Kunin, which is in the Vintajbeil district in southern Lebanon, who told me that they could feel the ground tremble beneath their feet. Now, what we know from this is that the Israelis seem to be trying to destroy every ounce of infrastructure they can before they have to withdraw. And it's also known that the Vintajbeil area has lots of Hezbollah infrastructure, including tunnels. So that's what the villagers were insinuating to me that might be the purpose of these dynamite detonations on behalf of the Israelis today. When Lebanon's president is welcomed later at the White House, it'll be a first. Joseph Fahoun has never met face-to-face with Donald Trump. But it'll also be without a mandate from Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has been fighting Israel in its southern and eastern strongholds. Hezbollah high on the minds in Washington. Let's take a listen. How do you replace Hezbollah? You defeat and replace them with a government that is strong enough to be the sole source of arms in the country, basically the security of Lebanon in the hands of the Lebanese armed forces, and a government that's able to provide prosperity for its people. Renee Davis, what are the expectations where you are from this Oval Office meeting later? What it seems to be, like I said earlier, the hastiness of it. Yesterday, President Joseph Fahoun met with Marco Rubio, and we had the first pilot zones announced. Today, what many Lebanese are hoping from the talk with Donald Trump is we'll have more pilot zones and a more concrete understanding of this so-called framework agreement, how exactly it will unravel, and how finally residents of southern Lebanon will regain some normality and peace.