Lebanese president calls for international pressure to ensure occupation withdrawal on Tuesday
BEIRUT – Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday reaffirmed ongoing diplomatic efforts to ensure “Israel” abides by its commitments and withdraws within the agreed timeframe, urging international stakeholders to uphold their responsibilities, according to state-owned National News Agency (NNA).
“We are engaged in contacts at various levels to push Israel to honor the agreement, withdraw within the agreed timeframe, and return the captives,” Aoun stated during a meeting with a delegation from the Economic, Social, and Environmental Council.
“The sponsors of the agreement must assume their responsibility in assisting us.”
Under a truce brokered by Washington in November, occupation troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon.
That deadline was later extended to 18 February, but the occupation requested that it keep troops in five posts in southern Lebanon, sources told Reuters last week.
In a recorded televised speech on Sunday, Hezbollah secretary general Naim Qassem said, “Israel must withdraw completely on 18 Feb, it has no pretext, no five points, or other details… this is the agreement.”
In the meantime, NNA correspondent in Baalbek reported on Sunday that the occupation warplanes launched two raids on the outskirts of the town of Harbta, and a third raid on the town of Hlabta in the northern Bekaa.
Correspondents reported additional artillery shelling across various locations, including the town of Houla, where occupation forces obstructed the Lebanese Army and the Red Cross from accessing the area to evacuate the body of martyr Khadija Hussein Atwi and to free ten civilians who had become trapped.
