Hezbollah says Lebanese president's US visit failed to secure Israeli withdrawal

The Iran-backed Hezbollah group criticised Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's recent visit to Washington on Thursday, calling it a failure and saying it showed submission to a foreign power.

In a statement, Hezbollah lawmakers said the visit revealed what they described as “subservience and submission to foreign tutelage.” They said it failed to secure a US commitment to an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese land. They also said it did not stop Israeli killing, bombing and bulldozing, allow the safe return of displaced people, or begin reconstruction.

US President Donald Trump received Aoun in Washington on Tuesday. Aoun said he had stressed the urgent need for a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory. Asked whether Washington would put more pressure on Israel to withdraw, Trump said the United States would look at it.

Hezbollah lawmakers also repeated the group's rejection of direct talks between Beirut and Israel, which began in April, and of a US-sponsored framework agreement signed by Lebanon and Israel last month. They called for a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Under the agreement, Lebanon's army is to disarm Hezbollah and Israel's military is to withdraw from pilot zones where Lebanese troops will later deploy. Lebanon's army began deploying on Tuesday to Zawtar al-Gharbiya as part of the deal.

Army chief Rodolphe Haykal visited Zawtar al-Gharbiya on Thursday and reviewed measures intended to ensure residents can return safely. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam planted a Lebanese flag in the town a day earlier. An AFP photographer saw rescuers entering the town, which remained off-limits to displaced residents.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said paramedics recovered the bodies of three people killed during the war in Zawtar al-Gharbiya.

Violence has declined since the signing of a US-Iran memorandum last month and the Lebanon-Israel framework deal, but Israel still carries out intermittent strikes in southern Lebanon. On Thursday, the National News Agency reported that Israeli forces carried out a large detonation in Al-Tiri, near the border, and that a Syrian worker was wounded by Israeli gunfire elsewhere in the south.

The Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee said two rescuers were wounded and an ambulance was damaged by an Israeli strike on Nabatieh al-Fawqa while they were inspecting the site of an earlier attack.