Israel completes release of five Lebanese detainees at the Naqoura crossing
Israel handed four more Lebanese detainees to the Red Cross at the Naqoura crossing on Friday, completing the release of five civilians agreed with Lebanon after Beirut helped search for Lebanese Jews who disappeared during the civil war. Netanyahu's office said none of the five belonged to a terrorist organisation. Lebanon's prime minister vowed to keep pressing until every remaining prisoner is freed and Israeli forces leave.
Geopolitics··Evening
Israel hands over the last four detainees at Naqoura
Israel handed four more Lebanese detainees to the International Committee of the Red Cross at the Naqoura border crossing on Friday, completing the release of five civilians under a deal with Lebanon. All five released under the deal were civilians, while dozens of other Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters captured during fighting in southern Lebanon, are believed to remain in Israeli detention. Journalists at a checkpoint south of Tyre saw a Red Cross convoy travel toward the Naqoura crossing on Friday morning and return, before it entered a Lebanese army barracks in the city.[1]
Netanyahu ties the release to a search for missing Lebanese Jews
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel had agreed to free the five detainees after Beirut helped search for the bodies of Lebanese Jewish community leaders who were abducted and killed in the 1980s, and said none of the five had been found to belong to a terrorist organisation or to have taken part in terrorism. Lebanon's prime minister, Nawaf Salam, thanked the United States for its role in the effort and said Beirut would keep pressing until every remaining prisoner is freed and Israeli forces leave Lebanese territory. Lebanese authorities have not published an official count of citizens held by Israel, but families and oversight committees have compiled a list of more than thirty people held since the 2024 conflict.[2]
Both accounts trace the deal back to April, with Rome talks ahead
Ghazi's Thursday handover, described in both accounts as the first such release since United States-brokered talks between Beirut and Israel began in April, saw him passed to the Red Cross and then to the Lebanese army; one report placed his arrival at a Lebanese army intelligence office in Tyre. A further round of talks between Lebanon and Israel is scheduled for Rome later in September, under the June framework covering Hezbollah's disarmament and an Israeli withdrawal.[1], [2]
