AGENCIES

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun yesterday said that planned talks with Israel aim to end hostilities and the occupation in the south, despite the rejection of negotiations by Hezbollah and its supporters.

“The choice to negotiate aims to stop hostilities, end the Israeli occupation of southern regions and deploy the (Lebanese) army all the way to the internationally recognised southern borders” with Israel, Aoun said in a statement.

A 10-day ceasefire, pausing more than six weeks of war between Hezbollah and Israel, started on Friday after being announced by US President Donald Trump.

The truce in Lebanon was also one of Iran’s conditions for resuming talks with Washington to extend their separate ceasefire.

Aoun’s moves yesterday came after a forceful address to the nation Friday night in which he said “we negotiate for ourselves... we are no longer a pawn in anyone’s game, nor an arena for anyone’s wars, and we never will be again”.

Hezbollah is not part of the talks, and its supporters strongly oppose Lebanon-Israel talks. Lebanon is officially at war with Israel and has no diplomatic ties with it.

Israeli attacks killed nearly 2,300 people and forced over a million to flee their homes, Lebanese authorities said, since Hezbollah dragged the country into the Middle East war last month.

The talks came after Israel yesterday told residents of south Lebanon to stay out of a belt of territory running the length of the border and not to approach the area of the Litani River, entrenching its grip over southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah.

The Israeli military posted a map on social media with a red line through 21 villages across the south, and said residents should not move into the area between it and the border, saying Israeli troops were maintaining positions in the south “in the face of ongoing terrorist activities” by the Iran-backed group.

The map named more than 50 other villages in the south to which residents should not return. The Israeli military also said it was not permitted to approach the area of the Litani River, which mostly flows to the north of the area the Israeli military said residents should stay out of.