Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Monday his forces will remain in southern Lebanon despite the recent US-Iran deal “de-confliction cell”  — as a fragile peace held for a second day. 

“IDF troops in southern Lebanon have full freedom of operation to engage any direct or emerging threat to them or to the residents of northern Israel,” said Netanyahu, according to a translated video of his Hebrew-language remarks. “The IDF has no restrictions in this regard.”

The de-confliction cell — which emerged Sunday from the first high-level US-Iran talks held under the newly minted Memorandum of Understanding — aims to prevent a return to full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which Iran insists must be settled before discussions about a larger deal can take place.

Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that the aim is to lower the temperature.

“Sometimes you have a bit of a chicken and an egg problem. You have a junior guy who fires a drone; of course, Israel has to respond,” he told reporters in Switzerland. “Sometimes that response, we could have a better and more peaceful situation if Israel responds in the context of a conversation that is ongoing between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel and other partners in the region.”

“There has not been a mechanism to have those discussions until around 4 p.m. yesterday when we set that up,” he added.

But critics say there’s a gaping problem with the idea: the members of the cell — the US, Iran and Lebanon — don’t include the actual parties at war: Israel and Hezbollah.

Zohar Palti, former head of Mossad’s intelligence directorate and Israeli Ministry of Defense official, had serious doubts the arrangement would be successful — especially as the agreement was made over Israel’s head.

“It’s not serious,” Palti said of the deconfliction mechanism. “It’s like a wedding without the groom or the bride.”

Palti said the mechanism is doomed to fail without representatives in the cell who understand the real threats that Israelis face from Hezbollah terrorists.

“We have 90,000 civilians all over the northern border that are suffering from Hezbollah, so everybody can do one big happy party with states that probably don’t know even 1% of the problem over here in the region, and the ones that will call the shots for the Israelis,” he said.

“With all due respect, essentially, life is much more complicated and serious than to do something to create a kind of a mechanism without us, right? It’s not going to hold.”

For now, the cease-fire appeared intact on Monday, with Israeli Foreign Minister Gidean Saar in a post to X pledging the Jewish state would respect the truce “as long as it won’t be breached by Hezbollah.”

He said the Israel Defense Force’s presence in southern Lebanon was not a mission to conquer territory, but to protect Israelis from Hezbollah’s threats.

“We don’t have territorial ambitions in Lebanon, but we will not withdraw from the security zone and expose our citizens to Hezbollah’s attacks and possible invasion,” he said.

Vance described the recent peace as “fruits” of the deconfliction mechanism.

“The last 24 hours have probably been the most peaceful we have seen, the situation in Lebanon,” he said. “… There was some shooting about 72 hours ago. What we have done is set up the operation [so] we can ensure it does not spiral out of control in the future.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.