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■ LEVANT · CEASEFIRE & FORCE TRACKER
Lebanon · Israel Track
The file has quietly changed subject: not whether the ceasefire framework holds, but what stands on the line after Dec 31. Speaker Nabih Berri says any successor to UNIFIL has to fly a UN flag and says Europe and Washington back one; President Joseph Aoun still wants the mandate extended first. The Security Council has the request and, on two diplomats’ count, not yet the votes.
AS OF MON AUG 31 · PM
Berri answered the framework by television: seven rounds of talks, and the occupied area is larger than when they began. The ledger moved by two after five days frozen.
4,352
Killed since Mar 2 · 12,318 wounded
Health Ministry via UPI · Aug 31
SEVEN
Negotiating rounds so far · no eighth scheduled
Berri via UPI · Aug 31
8,100
UNIFIL peacekeepers · mandate ends Dec 31
AP via Naharnet · Aug 29
1,980–5,525
Successor-force options costed for the Council
Secretary-General via SCR · Aug 28
- Berri answered by television. Marking 48 years since Musa al-Sadr vanished, the Speaker rejected the June 26 framework, its security zones and direct talks: “we warned against negotiating with the Israeli enemy under fire.”
- Seven rounds, and the map got worse. His accounting of the talks so far is that “the occupied area has expanded and Israel is continuing its war.” No eighth round has a date.
- The ledger moved by two. The Health Ministry’s count since Mar 2 now reads 4,352 killed and 12,318 wounded, against 4,350 and 12,310 five days earlier. Since Oct 8, 2023: 8,915 killed, 30,543 wounded.
- The Speaker names the danger as internal. “What Israel is seeking is not Hezbollah, its weapons, the Amal Movement, or the Shiite community. What Israel is seeking is sectarian strife.” He rejected federalism and partition as against Taif.
- Qantara is still being erased, and nobody can count it. Successive demolitions have left “nothing but a stretch of red sand,” per L’Orient Today’s field log. Residents and journalists are barred, so the destroyed-structure count can’t be confirmed.
- The successor force has prices and no sponsor. The Secretary-General costed three options — about 1,980, 3,370 or 5,525 personnel. Council support for a limited UNIFIL extension is strong but not unanimous, two diplomats told AP.
- Israel says the pilot zones already failed. A security source told Walla the Lebanese army isn’t destroying infrastructure whose coordinates Israel supplied. Qassem, from the other side, calls the framework illegitimate and rejects any verification mechanism.
🏔️ THEATRE MAPSOUTH LEBANON