Israel releases Lebanese detainee as farmer detentions reported

Israel released a Lebanese civilian on Thursday while a village leader in southern Lebanon said Israeli forces detained three farmers in a separate incident, underscoring the fragility of US-mediated efforts to ease tensions between the two countries.

Malek Ghazi was handed over to the Lebanese army through the International Committee of the Red Cross at the Naqoura border crossing, Lebanese officials and media reported. He was then taken to an army intelligence facility in Tyre for a medical examination.

Ghazi’s family said he disappeared last October after leaving home to exercise. Al Jazeera reported that his family is from Ain Ata, near the southern border village of Shebaa.

The release is believed to be the first known handover of a Lebanese civilian held by Israel since US-mediated talks between Israel and Lebanon began in April. Israel said four more Lebanese civilians would be released on Friday, while Al Jazeera reported that Israel had pledged to free five prisoners in total.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the detainees had been questioned and found to have no links to armed groups. Al Jazeera quoted Netanyahu’s statement as saying they were not “members of a terrorist organisation” and were not “involved in terrorism”. The statement said Israel agreed to release Lebanese civilians held by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon after Beirut helped search for the bodies of Lebanese Jewish leaders who were “abducted and murdered by terrorist organisations” in the 1980s.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed Ghazi’s release and thanked the United States for its role. He said his government would keep working “until the release of all our prisoners, the disclosure of the fate of the missing, and the achievement of a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory”.

More than 30 Lebanese are still believed to be in Israeli custody. Lebanese authorities have not publicly announced the number held since the 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah, but Al Jazeera reported that families and a committee following the cases have compiled a list of more than 30 people.

Hours before Ghazi’s release was reported, Issa Abedelaal, the leader of Halta village in Hasbaya province, told the BBC that Israeli forces detained three Lebanese farmers. He said Israeli forces called the farmers on their mobile phones and told them to report to a location, where they were detained and taken away.

The reported detentions came after Israeli forces entered Halta, which lies within a roughly 600-square-kilometre area that Israel continues to occupy, the BBC reported. The detentions were reported to the US-led International Monitoring and Implementation Mechanism, which oversees security coordination between Israel and Lebanon. The Israeli military did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported that Israeli forces advanced into Halta on Thursday, while Israeli drones flew over the Tyre region at dawn. The agency said Israeli forces carried out detonations in Haddatha and Baraachit in Nabatieh governorate and demolished homes in al-Mansouri.

The detainee issue is one part of wider US-mediated negotiations. The talks also cover a framework agreed in mid-June under which Hezbollah is expected to disarm, the Lebanese army would deploy in southern Lebanon and Israeli forces would withdraw gradually, beginning with designated “pilot zones”.

The process has made little headway. The BBC reported that Israel has questioned the role of the Lebanese army and that the sides disagree over how compliance would be verified. Hezbollah rejects the talks and the pilot-zone concept outright. The BBC said no date has been set for an eighth round of talks, while Al Jazeera reported that another round is expected in Rome later this month.

Israel has continued attacks in southern Lebanon. Lebanese authorities said 11 people were killed in an Israeli air strike in the region in August. The Israeli military said at the time that it had killed a Hezbollah commander after an attack against Israeli soldiers.