Lebanon's prime minister demands full Israeli withdrawal at UN as strikes continue in the south

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that Israel must complete a full withdrawal from southern Lebanon and that a five-month-old ceasefire must be turned into concrete, timetabled steps, as Israeli strikes and demolitions continued in the south while he spoke.

Addressing the General Assembly's high-level debate in New York, Salam said Lebanon wants the war that reignited in March to end for good. "We want Israel to withdraw from all Lebanese territory up to our internationally recognized borders, in accordance with the 1949 General Armistice Agreement and as affirmed by Resolution 1701," he said. "We want the war to end and we want the ceasefire consolidated."

The toll since fighting resumed

Since the truce collapsed on March 2, when Hezbollah retaliated for US and Israeli strikes on Iran, at least 4,386 people have been killed in Lebanon and 12,407 wounded, according to figures reported by Al Jazeera. More than 300,000 people remain displaced, and the World Bank has estimated the cost of rebuilding the south at $3 billion to $4 billion, according to Arab News.

Israeli forces still hold positions across roughly 600 square kilometers of southern Lebanon — a significant slice of a country of about 10,452 square kilometers in total — spanning more than 60 towns and villages up to the Litani River, despite the ceasefire framework in place since April. As Salam spoke on Friday, Israeli forces set off a large explosion near Taybeh and Deir Siryan and carried out an air strike in a valley between Froun and Ghandourieh that triggered a fire, according to Al Jazeera's reporting from the ground.

How the war restarted

The current fighting is a resumption of the broader Israel-Hezbollah conflict that erupted after October 2023 and was paused by a November 2024 ceasefire. That truce broke down on March 2, 2026, when Hezbollah fired on Israel following the US and Israeli bombing of Iran on February 28, and Israel responded with a renewed ground and air campaign across southern Lebanon and strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs.

A US-brokered halt to the fighting took effect on April 16, originally framed by the State Department as a ten-day cessation of hostilities meant to enable negotiations. It was extended repeatedly over the following months, including a 45-day extension in May and a June agreement establishing so-called pilot zones under which the Lebanese army would deploy into positions vacated by Israeli troops. Despite that framework, high-intensity fighting continued into late June, and Israel has not completed the withdrawal the agreement envisioned. The UN Secretary-General's office condemned strikes on Lebanon even after the ceasefire took hold, and Beirut has continued to press the terms under which its own soldiers, rather than Hezbollah fighters, hold the ground closest to the Israeli border.

Reconstruction and disarmament

Salam told delegates that rebuilding the south cannot wait on a final settlement. "The reconstruction of the south isn't merely the rebuilding of stone," he said. "It's the rebuilding of people's lives, the restoration of their livelihoods, and affirmation of the right to live in safety and dignity on their land." He also called for the release of Lebanese detainees held by Israel and repeated Beirut's position that "weapons must be exclusively in the hands of the state and that decisions on war and peace rest solely with its constitutional institutions" — a reference to Lebanon's pledge to bring Hezbollah's arsenal under state control south of the Litani.

"The reconstruction of the south isn't merely the rebuilding of stone. It's the rebuilding of people's lives, the restoration of their livelihoods, and affirmation of the right to live in safety and dignity on their land." — Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, UN General Assembly

A peacekeeping force on the clock

Salam's appeal is shadowed by the scheduled departure of UN peacekeepers. The Security Council voted last August to extend the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, for one final year, directing the nearly five-decade-old mission to cease operations on December 31, 2026, and begin a drawdown that could last up to a year. The resolution came after sustained pressure from Washington and Israel to end the mission, with France brokering the final compromise timeline among Security Council members. Salam warned of "the need to avert the vacuum that UNIFIL's withdrawal could create, were it to take place without agreement on a new international force to replace it," pressing the Security Council and troop-contributing countries to settle on an alternative security arrangement before the deadline arrives.

Reaction and what comes next

Salam's speech followed one a day earlier by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who defended the campaign against Hezbollah and thanked President Trump for joining Israel's strikes on Iran, telling delegates, many of whom had walked out at the start of his address, "We will continue to win because we have no other choice."

The gap between the two speeches underscores how far apart Beirut and Jerusalem remain on implementing the ceasefire even as its architects, principally Washington, continue to describe it as holding. Lebanese officials are pressing for a firm timetable for an Israeli pullback and for clarity on what replaces UNIFIL after December, while Israel has continued strikes it says target Hezbollah's efforts to rearm. With the peacekeeping mandate now on a fixed countdown and reconstruction costs mounting, the coming months are expected to determine whether the ceasefire evolves into a durable settlement or unravels into a fresh round of full-scale fighting.