[Middle East Tensions Escalate Again] Israel attacks Lebanon again... Defense minister orders long-term deployment

[Financial News]  

Israel launched another attack on the 27th (local time), just one day after signing a peace agreement with Lebanon through U.S. mediation.
According to foreign media outlets including Cable News Network (CNN) and Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Israeli military carried out a drone strike on Southern Lebanon that day. The south is a Hezbollah stronghold.
An Israeli drone was reported to have struck the Nabatieh area in the south that day.
Earlier, on the 26th, Israel signed a peace agreement at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., with the mediation of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, attended by the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors.
An Israeli military spokesperson told AFP, "The airstrike carried out that day targeted terror suspects judged to pose a threat to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)."
A halt to hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is one of the key conditions of the memorandum of understanding signed by the U.S. and Iran on the 14th.
However, despite warnings from the U.S., Israel has continued attacking Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group in Lebanon, raising concerns that the memorandum of understanding could collapse.
Under the peace agreement signed by Israel and Lebanon the previous day through U.S. mediation, Israel agreed to withdraw its forces from areas north and south of the Litani River. Those areas are to be handed over to the Lebanese Armed Forces. Both Israel and Lebanon viewed this as the first step in implementing the agreement, and each claimed victory at home.
Hezbollah, however, which has consistently refused to accept the deal, was excluded from the agreement.
In a lengthy statement on the 27th, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said the previous day's Washington Agreement was "humiliating, disgraceful, and a surrender of Lebanon's sovereignty," and argued that it was invalid.
He accused Lebanon of "legitimizing Israel's occupation" and said that "any attempt to link Israel's withdrawal from Southern Lebanon to Hezbollah's disarmament crosses a red line."
Israel also refused to back down. It declared that it would maintain a long-term presence.
Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said in a video statement, "I have instructed the military to maintain a long-term presence in the South Lebanon Security Zone." The security zone extends up to 10 kilometers inside Lebanese territory.
Katz added, "The principle established in this agreement is that unless Hezbollah disarms across Lebanon, Israel will not redeploy or withdraw its forces from Southern Lebanon."

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