Clashes between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militias in southern Lebanon continued unabated on Thursday, a day after the United States announced a new cease-fire. File photo by Atef Safadi/EPA
June 4 (UPI) -- Israel and Lebanon signed up to a fresh U.S.-brokered cease-fire to clear the path for negotiations toward "a comprehensive peace and security agreement" between the two countries.
The truce, predicated on Iran-backed Hezbollah halting all attacks and withdrawing from south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, involves the setting up of Lebanese Army exclusion zones out-of-bounds to all non-state actors, the parties said Wednesday in a statement released by the U.S. State Department.
"These steps will enable progress towards a comprehensive peace and security agreement. All countries reaffirmed that the future of the relationship between Israel and Lebanon must be decided by the two sovereign governments. They rejected any attempt, by any state or non-state actor, to hold Lebanon's future hostage," said the State Department.
The area Hezbollah must vacate is an approximately 20-mile wide strip of land between the Lebanon-Israel border and the Litani River in Lebanon's south.
