Lebanon and Israel have agreed on a shortlist of countries that could send troops to verify the disarmament of Hezbollah under a US-brokered agreement, a Lebanese official said on Friday, with the United States due to pick countries from the list.

The official declined to identify any of the countries on the shortlist or say how many there were. Another Lebanese official and two foreign diplomats have previously told Reuters that Israel and the United States had vetoed France.

The list was produced during meetings between Lebanon and Israel at the US embassy in Rome this week, the latest round of talks on how to implement a June 26 deal that links Israel’s progressive withdrawal of troops from Lebanon to the disarmament of ​Hezbollah, which would be “verified” by a third party.

Hezbollah is not a party to the agreement and has refused to give up its arsenal.

“We have reached a short list of countries. We decided which parties were impossible for each and set the potential actors,” the Lebanese official said. “The Americans will now decide, and could pick more than one country.”

There was no immediate response from Israel’s Foreign Ministry to Reuters questions on the shortlist. When asked about the shortlist, a US State Department spokesperson said the talks were “productive on the technical and expert levels” but did not provide further details.

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The United States has been trying to broker an end to fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has raged since March in parallel with the wider US-Israeli war against Iran.

Two days after the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, Hezbollah fired at Israel in solidarity with Tehran. Israeli forces responded with aerial bombardments and a ground........

© The Times of Israel