Israel has released a Lebanese civilian detainee and committed to freeing five additional prisoners, constituting the first such exchange since the escalation of hostilities with Hezbollah six months ago. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the agreement on Thursday, stating that Israel would release civilians held in southern Lebanon after Beirut assisted in locating the remains of Jewish leaders who were abducted and killed by militant groups in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu added that following interrogation, the five detainees were determined not to be members of terrorist organizations or involved in terrorism. The initial release involved Malek Ghazi, who was transferred to the Lebanese army via the International Committee of the Red Cross at the Naqoura border crossing before being moved to an intelligence office in Tyre.<\/p>\n
Ghazi\u2019s family, from the southeastern town of Ain Ata, reported losing contact with him last October after he left for exercise. He is the first citizen detained by Israel to be freed since US-brokered negotiations between Lebanon and Israel commenced in April.<\/p>\n
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam praised the release, thanking the US administration for its efforts. He vowed to continue working toward the release of all Lebanese prisoners, the clarification of the fate of the missing, and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory.<\/p>\n
While Lebanese authorities have not officially disclosed the total number of citizens held by Israel since 2024, families and a dedicated committee have identified over 30 individuals. The conflict originated from clashes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah in late 2023, which intensified into full-scale war in 2024. Lebanon became more deeply involved two years later after Hezbollah retaliated for the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting significant Israeli military action that has resulted in over 4,300 deaths in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Violence decreased following a US-Iran memorandum establishing a ceasefire in June, followed by an Israel-Lebanon agreement calling for Hezbollah disarmament, a phased Israeli withdrawal from the south, and the deployment of the Lebanese army to pilot zones. Despite these talks, Israel continues military operations in southern Lebanon, including recent advances into Halta village and airstrikes in Nabatieh and al-Mansouri.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel has freed one Lebanese civilian and pledged to release five others, marking the first such handover since the outbreak of war with Hezbollah six months ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[365,17,286,33,366,10],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hezbollah","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-middle-east","tag-prisoner-exchange","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}