It comes three weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 30: "We will not leave southern Lebanon until the threat has disappeared." As hundreds of thousands remain displaced in southern Lebanon, Aoun believes Trump has the leverage to pressure Israel to withdraw and help Lebanon restore its sovereignty, Reuters reported, citing a Lebanese official. This would allow Israel to say Lebanon had not kept to its side of the deal. But critics said it had echoes of when Israel entered southern Lebanon in 1978 and then invaded more extensively four years later with the aim of stopping attacks by Palestinian militants operating from Lebanon. When asked about whether Israel was occupying Lebanon, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Newsweek it "considers that Israel remains in control of certain areas in southern Lebanon, and so the law of occupation applies in those areas.”