Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has said that the army was now in control of more than 85 per cent of the country’s south.
The statement came as a security official said yesterday the Lebanese army has dismantled more than 90pc of Hizbollah’s infrastructure near the border with Israel since a November ceasefire.
The November truce deal, which ended more than a year of hostilities between Hizbollah and Israel, was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and United Nations peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon.
Under the deal, Hizbollah was to pull its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River, some 30km from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.
Much of Hizbollah’s robust underground infrastructure in the south was “filled and closed” by the army, the official said.
Aoun said in an interview with Sky News Arabia the Lebanese army was “fulfilling its role without any problems or opposition.”
He said the single obstacle to the full deployment of soldiers across the border area was “Israel’s occupation of five border positions.”
Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel was to withdraw all its forces from south Lebanon, but its troops remain in five positions that it deems “strategic.”
The security official, meanwhile, said that Hizbollah has been co-operating with the army.
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