Israel wants to extend presence in Lebanon, testing Trump diplomacy

Israel says it needs the positions to defend its communities after a year of war with Hezbollah. But Lebanon has rejected the idea, creating friction around a deal that ended months of fighting that included thousands of Israeli airstrikes and an invasion of southern Lebanon.

The push to hold the high ground follows Israel’s earlier moves to seize positions including the peak of Mt. Hermon in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime and to carve out a bigger buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip after 16 months of war with Hamas.

Israel is also successfully pressing Lebanon’s government to block Iranian flights it says are transporting cash for Hezbollah. A flight was stopped Thursday after Israel flagged that it might be carrying money, and flights from Iran will be halted until Feb. 18, a person familiar with the matter said. Another flight was stopped Friday, Iranian state media said.

A spokesman for the Israeli military called out the cash-smuggling efforts on Thursday and said it raises such incidents with the committee overseeing the cease-fire in Lebanon.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday said Israeli “threats" to the Lebanese air route violate international law.

The moves reflect the swift change in the balance of power after Israel, which struggled for months to contain militia attacks around its borders, has scored a string of military victories against Iran-backed forces that has given its troops much greater freedom of action.

Israel has already delayed its withdrawal from Lebanon by nearly a month, citing the need to dismantle Hezbollah’s positions in the south. It is now seeking to delay it by another 10 days, to Feb. 28.

The deputy U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Morgan Ortagus, said last week the U.S. remained committed to the withdrawal date of Feb. 18. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut declined to comment Friday on the recent requests by Israel and the negotiations.

Any prolonging of Israel’s military presence in Lebanon could stir tensions in the country at a time when Lebanese society is rebuilding after the war uprooted as many as one million people from their homes and leveled hundreds of buildings in Beirut.

The five locations Israel wants to hold in Lebanon are dotted along the length of their shared border including sites near the towns of Khiam, Odaisseh, Naqoura and Ramyeh, according to Lebanese officials. They overlook Israeli border communities and could give the military the ability to respond quickly to any threats.

Israeli officials made the request to hold that ground in ongoing negotiations with American officials in recent weeks, according to other Lebanese officials familiar with the negotiations.

“The key concern for Israel is these strategic points or, at least the way they see it, is the strategic points that they seem to consider too dangerous to hand over," said David Wood, a senior analyst on Lebanon at International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution organization.

“It could also be that it wants to retain a bargaining chip in terms of cease-fire implementation, the idea being that they won’t fully end the occupation until they can see what they consider to be better compliance by Lebanon," he said.

U.S. Major General Jasper Jeffers, who is working to coordinate the new security arrangement in southern Lebanon, said on Friday that he met with Israeli and Lebanese military officers and French officials to make a technical plan for the handover of all remaining villages from the Israeli army to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

“We have made significant progress over the last few months, and I am confident that LAF will control all population centers in the Southern Litani Area before next Tuesday," he said in a statement posted by Centcom on X.

He also said he and the committee coordinating the cease-fire would help with the implementation of aspects of the agreement “even beyond the 18th of February."

In southern Lebanon, residents said they would defy any continued Israeli presence in the area.

“If Israel want to occupy any part of my land, I won’t be accepting it, and I won’t be worried about an escalation, because we are the owners of this land," said Bassel Rhaymi, a resident of the town of Khiam, one of the locations where Israeli forces remain.

Israel launched its assault on Hezbollah after the group began firing rockets across the border shortly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that left 1,200 people dead and sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.

Throughout the war, Israel said that its main goal was to push back Hezbollah forces from areas along its border to stop rocket, drone and mortar fire that threatened Israeli communities.

The Israeli offensive last fall dealt a generational setback to Hezbollah, killing most of its top leaders and wiping out much of its stockpile of weapons. The weakening of Hezbollah also contributed to the toppling of another Iranian ally, the Assad regime in Syria, cutting down Hezbollah’s ability to smuggle weapons into Lebanon.

Hezbollah was founded in the 1980s with the aim of driving Israeli forces from the country during an earlier invasion, and a prolonged Israeli presence could create pressure for the group to respond. Any resumption of fighting in Lebanon could also destabilize the wider region after more than a year of war that drew in both the U.S. and Iran.

Israel and Hezbollah accepted a cease-fire agreement in November that called on the militia group to pull its forces from southern Lebanon while the Lebanese military and a multinational United Nations peacekeeping force deploy in their place to remove Hezbollah weaponry and guarantee security.

A senior official from the committee tasked with enforcing the truce says the plan has been largely successful, with the Lebanese military removing unauthorized arms from the area including rocket launchers and other heavy weapons.

The effort has been slow-going, however, due to the large amount of weaponry amassed there by Hezbollah, and because the Lebanese army can’t enter areas where the Israeli military remains. Concerns also remain about the Lebanese army, which for years has been understaffed and underfunded.

President Trump helped land an agreement to pause the war in Gaza after months of fruitless negotiations under the Biden administration. But he has since roiled the region with comments saying he wants the U.S. to take over the devastated enclave and develop it as an international destination while its Palestinian population is relocated elsewhere.

In Lebanon, senior Trump administration officials say they are working to implement the cease-fire agreement, which initially gave Israel 60 days to withdraw as Lebanese forces took over its positions. Trump backed an Israeli request for an extension in January.

The Lebanese government led by President Joseph Aoun, a former military commander and opponent of Hezbollah who was elected in January, is opposed to an extension of Israel’s occupation in the south, Lebanese officials say.

An Israeli security official said the military is preparing to pull out of southern Lebanon by Feb. 18 but would continue to enact the decisions made by the Israeli government and the other members of the cease-fire agreement.

Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com and Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com