A security deal between Israel and Lebanon risks entrenching a stalemate rather than resolving Tel Aviv’s underlying conflict with Hezbollah by tying its pullout from southern Lebanon to the group’s disarmament, a condition regional analysts and politicians say is unattainable. At its core is a bargain few see as workable: Hezbollah has flatly rejected disarmament, and no Lebanese government has the power to enforce it. With Hezbollah unlikely to disarm, analysts say Israel has political cover to keep an open-ended military presence in southern Lebanon, which it invaded after Hezbollah fired at Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Tehran over the war in Iran. The deal leaves the Lebanese state trapped between obligations it cannot meet and sovereignty it cannot fully reclaim, the analysts say. An Israeli soldier works on a tank on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, after Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreement following US-mediated talks, in northern Israel on June 28, 2026. — Reuters The ...