‘Unacceptable’: Lebanon claims US will accept Israeli troops remaining in Lebanon after deadline

The United States has approved an Israeli request for IDF troops to remain “indefinitely” in strategic points on Lebanese territory despite the withdrawal deadline expiring on Feb. 18, Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri claimed on Thursday.

Berri, who represented Hezbollah during the ceasefire negotiations, stated he was informed that “the Israeli occupier will withdraw on Feb. 18 from the villages it still occupies, but will remain in five strategic points.”

His statement followed a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, and the chairman of the ceasefire monitoring committee, U.S. General Jasper Jeffers.

This would be “unacceptable” for Lebanon, Berri stressed.

“I told them, in my name, in the name of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, that we categorically reject this,” said the octogenarian leader of the Amal movement, which is closely allied with Hezbollah.

Earlier reports indicated that the Trump administration was not inclined to approve the Israeli request for another deadline extension.

However, earlier on Thursday, a U.S. official told the Times of Israel that the first test for the new government of Aoun would be “whether the Lebanese Armed Forces actually implements the letter of the ceasefire agreement that Lebanon signed in November 2024 to counter Hezbollah’s efforts to reassert itself.”

“Israeli presence in the five points directly bears on whether the government of Lebanon ultimately does what it has promised to do,” the official said.

At the time of publication, there was no official confirmation of Berri’s claims from U.S. officials. U.S. deputy special envoy to the Middle East, Morgan Ortagus, is reportedly due to visit Lebanon again before Feb. 18.

Berri also laid all responsibility for enforcing the Israeli withdrawal on the U.S. and claimed Hezbollah was fulfilling its part of the ceasefire, while vaguely threatening Israel.

“If the occupation remains, the days will decide between us,” Berri said in reference to an earlier threat issued by the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The speaker also noted that while the Lebanese army (LAF) was doing its duty to remove Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, in the rest of the country, things might look differently.

“As for the north of the Litani, this is up to the Lebanese and a dialogue table that discusses a defense strategy,” he said, alluding to the internal debates over whether Hezbollah must give up its weapons, as the ceasefire agreement and UN Resolution 1701 stipulate.

“This part of Berri's statement is critical. The Lebanese are trying to take the issue of Hezbollah's disarmament back to an internal Lebanese dialogue, where the group has massive popular backing that President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and his government, other factions will be forced to take into account,” explained David Daoud, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“If the issue of disarming Hezbollah is left up to the Lebanese and their internal dialogue and reaching consensus, it means Hezbollah will never be disarmed. This was always the goal of both Hezbollah and their political mask Berri during ceasefire negotiations,” Daoud added.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued its attempts to move weapons and evade LAF raids. The IDF stated on Thursday that it had “conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah military sites containing weapons and launchers that pose a direct threat to the Israeli home front.”

Israel also revealed on Thursday that the terror group has been smuggling money by using passenger planes arriving in Beirut from Tehran, which caused Lebanese authorities to withdraw a landing permit for a flight that was about to depart from Iran.

In response, crowds of Hezbollah supporters blocked streets and lit bonfires on roads near the Beirut airport, accusing the authorities of complying with Israeli demands.

The Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat cited a source at the airport who said authorities had received information indicating that the Iranian plane contained funds intended for Hezbollah, which endangered the security of the airport and, therefore, didn’t receive a landing permit.