Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Friday’s framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon a “historic achievement for Israel” that opens the door to an eventual “peace agreement between the two nations” while still allowing the Israel Defense Forces to remain in the country and combat threats from Hezbollah.

Netanyahu made the remarks in a wide-ranging press conference on Saturday night, in which he also discussed the upcoming election as well as the recently signed memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran, which kicked off 60 days of talks between those countries to permanently end the US-Israeli war with the Islamic Republic.

Israel is not a party to those talks, and the terms of the MOU have sparked profound concern in Israel because they mandate a ceasefire in Lebanon and free up money for Iran without it agreeing to defined concessions on its nuclear program. Netanyahu said Israel was sending a delegation to Washington, DC, to discuss the MOU, and claimed that the war created the conditions for the Iranian regime to fall.

The framework agreement with Lebanon, reached Friday in US-backed talks in Washington, includes a pilot effort in which Lebanese soldiers take control of some small areas currently held by Israeli troops, and includes a process aimed at disarming the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group. Hezbollah has rejected the agreement.

At the press conference, Netanyahu called the deal “a major blow” to Iran and to Hezbollah. Contrary to Iranian demands that Israel withdraw from south Lebanon, the prime minister said the framework accord allows the IDF to maintain its buffer zone there for as long as it needs.

“We’ll continue to hold it until Hezbollah and other terror groups are disarmed,” he said, “until there is no longer a threat to Israel from Lebanon.”

With the accord, he claimed, Israel, Lebanon and the US “are essentially telling Iran, ‘This is none of your business. You have no status here, no involvement and no role. Not you, not Hezbollah, not any terror group.'”

On Saturday night, however, the Lebanese president’s office appeared to undercut Netanyahu’s statement, saying that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told US President Donald Trump he is committed to implementing the agreement but hopes the US will pressure Israel to withdraw from the south.

He acknowledged that Israel would be withdrawing from two small areas it currently holds, in a pilot project for disarming Hezbollah and transferring the territory to........

© The Times of Israel