Lebanese Army Enters South as Israel Starts First Pullback
Beirut has its first concrete step toward an Israeli withdrawal from the south, under a phased, US-brokered framework that Belgrade watches through the lens of regional stability.
- Lebanon's army began deploying into three southern pilot zones on July 20, along the border with Israel.
- The first Israeli pullback is expected as early as Tuesday, framed as a test before any wider withdrawal.
- The arrangement is brokered by the United States, agreed by Israel and Lebanon, and built on a phased, conditional model.
- The sixth round of talks closed on July 15 with reported progress, yet the deadline for a full withdrawal remains unclear.
For Belgrade, which aligns its foreign policy with the European perspective and has long followed United Nations peace mandates, any shift in southern Lebanon carries weight beyond the local. This is a line where the interests of major powers meet, and the stability of that belt feeds directly into the wider security geography of the eastern Mediterranean that Serbian diplomacy watches closely. So the news that the Lebanese army began deploying into three southern pilot zones on Sunday, July 20, is not merely a regional episode. It is the first tangible sign that the long-standing pattern of Israeli presence on Lebanese soil could change.
The Lebanese Armed Forces moved into villages in the south as part of a trilateral framework agreed by Israel and Lebanon and brokered by Washington. The model is deliberately phased and conditional: instead of a single, sweeping withdrawal, the parties chose a limited set of zones in which to test whether the Lebanese army can assume control and the Israeli military can hand it over without new incidents. The first Israeli pullback, under the agreed sequence, is expected as early as Tuesday.
What makes this step different from earlier ceasefires?
Recent years brought a string of ceasefires that collapsed almost as fast as they were declared, so the skepticism in Beirut and across the region is understandable. What sets this arrangement apart is the order of moves: the Lebanese army deploys before Israel withdraws, avoiding the security vacuum that Hezbollah filled in the past. Rather than tying withdrawal to a single signature, it is broken into measurable steps, where each next one depends on the success of the last.
That, at least on paper, changes the logic of the negotiation. The sixth round of talks closed on July 15 with word of progress on the withdrawal plan itself, and the pilot zones are the concrete product of that momentum. For a Lebanese state that has tried for years to restore its monopoly on force across its own territory, deploying the regular army in the south carries both symbolic and practical weight: it is an attempt to return control of the border to institutions rather than to paramilitary structures.
What remains unresolved on the ground
Despite the positive tone, the central question stays unanswered, namely the deadline for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Lebanese south. The phased approach that lowers the risk of collapse also leaves room for delay, since any zone that fails the test can stall the whole process. Open, too, is how Hezbollah will treat the new deployment, as its presence in the border belt remains the most sensitive point of any deal.
Washington, now the chief mediator, presents this framework as a model that could extend along the entire border if the first zones hold. European chancelleries, which link Lebanon’s long-term stability to preventing fresh migratory and security pressure on the Mediterranean, are weighing each step carefully. For the wider Mediterranean neighborhood to which Serbia belongs, the message is clear: for the first time in a while there is a process with a defined sequence, not just a proclamation.
Will the phased model withstand the pressure of the ground and grow into a genuine withdrawal, or will it stall, as before, at the first villages of southern Lebanon?
