Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreement in Washington on Friday following several days of talks to secure an end to fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

Lebanese Ambassador Nada Moawad and her Israeli counterpart Yechiel Leiter signed the trilateral document with the U.S. at the State Department in Washington.

Details of the Agreement

The officials did not provide details of the framework deal and did not say how its terms would differ from those included in an April 16 ceasefire deal that preceded several rounds of U.S.-brokered Israel-Lebanon talks.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out when the armed group fired at Israel on March 2, days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. The Hezbollah attacks triggered Israeli air and ground attacks that have killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon and displaced more than a million.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said before the agreement was inked, “Today we’ve taken the first step in what will be a difficult journey, without a doubt, but an important and an essential and a necessary one.”

Leiter praised Moawad for negotiating like a “lioness.” “In this performance-based trilateral framework agreement, Iran is out, Hezbollah is out, and the road to peace between Israel and Lebanon is in,” he said.

Israel’s death toll from this round of hostilities with Hezbollah includes at least 32 soldiers and four Israeli civilians. Hezbollah does not release figures on its war dead.

The talks in Washington have included discussions on a proposal for Israeli forces to hand some of the territory they occupied in southern Lebanon to Lebanon’s military.

Israeli forces dropped leaflets over the southern Lebanese town of Mansouri on Friday ordering residents to leave, Lebanese state media reported, the first such order issued since the latest ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.