Stray dogs walk past the rubble of flattened homes and businesses, destroyed by the Israeli military, in the southern Lebanese village of Tibnin. AFP
It also permits Israel to continue carrying out military operations, including airstrikes, inside Lebanon if it unilaterally determines that a security threat persists, according to media reports.
The annex gives Israel and the US the exclusive authority to judge whether Lebanon's disarmament efforts are successful.
Penalizing hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese citizens, the annex also bars civilians from towns located within the Israeli-declared security zone from returning to their homes until further notice.
On Friday, the US Department of Justice released the full text of a trilateral framework agreed with Israel and Lebanon. The framework deal, reached on 27 June, aims to end decades of wars, establish a path toward diplomatic relations, and lay the groundwork for a comprehensive peace agreement between the two countries.
Under the 14-article framework, Lebanon is required to deploy the Lebanese Armed Forces to designated "pilot zones," dismantle non-state military infrastructure and verify the complete disarmament of Hezbollah. The agreement sets no binding deadline for an Israeli military withdrawal.
While diplomatic efforts have aimed to de-escalate, intermittent Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire continue in several regions of Lebanon.
According to a statement released Tuesday by the Lebanese health ministry, Lebanon's official death toll from the war with Israel has risen to 4,278, will injuries hit 12,196.
The Israeli war has also displaced nearly 1.4 million people across Lebanon, triggering one of the country's largest humanitarian crises in recent years.
On 8 June, Lebanese Defence Minister Michel Menassa told a cabinet meeting that Israeli forces had carried out 3,491 airstrikes, 407 controlled demolitions, and six large-scale razing operations between 17 April and 7 June. He added that the destruction had flattened entire villages in Lebanon's southern border region.
Israeli occupation troops are now operating in a self-declared "security zone" stretching around 10 kilometres (six miles) they occupied in southern Lebanon along the border.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem declared the accord "humiliating, shameful, and a surrender of sovereignty" and vowed to continue armed resistance till the end of Israel's occupation.
The agreement effectively strips the Lebanese state and its citizens of their right to seek international legal accountability, reparations, or justice for war crimes and infrastructural destruction committed by Israel on Lebanese soil.
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