Lebanon is going through a phase in which the lines between war and ceasefire are blurred. There is neither a full-scale confrontation nor an agreement leading to a real peace.
As the date approaches for the third round of direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel in Washington on Thursday and Friday, military operations have escalated, with Israeli airstrikes and targeted killings extending from southern Lebanon to the Bekaa Valley and the outskirts of Beirut.
Hezbollah continues its attacks on Israeli forces and positions in southern Lebanon and inside Israel.
Meanwhile, diplomatic contacts have intensified. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun discussed with U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa on Monday the preparations for the anticipated meeting in Washington, stressing the need to pressure Israel to cease fire and halt the demolition and bulldozing of homes. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also discussed developments with the U.S. ambassador, emphasizing the need to “maintain the calm” and “stop the ongoing violations.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli side is discussing with Lebanon “how to work together militarily and politically to get rid of Hezbollah,” noting in an interview with CBS on Sunday that the war with Hezbollah should continue regardless of any potential ceasefire with Iran.
Negotiations Under Fire
Since U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire on April 16 and extended it until May 17, hostilities have not completely stopped, especially in southern Lebanon.
Strategic expert retired Brigadier General George Nader points to the continuation of Israeli airstrikes and “daily casualties,” saying that what has been achieved in practice has been limited to “halting the targeting of Beirut and the southern suburbs, while escalation continues in the south through intensified military operations.”
Nader told Alhurra’s website that the Israeli escalation coinciding with negotiations “is not separate from the political track,” considering that it as part of “Israel’s attempt to leverage its military gains as a pressure tool at the negotiating table.”
Political researcher Dr. Makram Rabah rules out that the negotiations will lead to a halt in military confrontations, because Hezbollah “views the conflict within a broader regional framework that goes beyond internal Lebanese dynamics.” Political analyst George Aakouri believes that Israel “treats any ceasefire with extreme caution out of fear of giving Hezbollah an opportunity to reorganize its ranks and restore its capabilities.”
On Tuesday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem called for rejecting direct negotiations with Israel, urging the Lebanese state to “withdraw from direct negotiations that constitute pure gains for Israel,” as he put it, and calling for a return to indirect negotiations.
Aakouri points out that Hezbollah’s objection “is not related to the form of negotiations as much as it is related to the party leading this process,” noting that “the Lebanese state has now become the party directly managing negotiations, after decision-making in previous stages was linked to Iran or to the party itself.”
The United States had hosted two rounds of direct talks between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors in Washington as part of efforts to end the war and reach a peace agreement between the two countries.
The Regional Dimension of the War
The political movement coincides with rising regional tensions. Iran announced that a ceasefire in Lebanon was among the items it had proposed within a plan to end the war with the United States—an offer that Trump rejected.
In response to a question about whether it is possible for the war with Iran to end while the war with Hezbollah continues, Netanyahu said in his CBS interview: “It should be,” adding that Iran wants to link any ceasefire on one front to a similar ceasefire on other fronts, which he appeared to reject.
Aakouri considers linking a ceasefire to any Iranian-American agreement “a natural matter for Hezbollah, as it is an organic part of the Iranian project in the region.”
Will the Negotiations Succeed?
Despite Hezbollah’s objection, Aakouri affirms that the Lebanese state “will continue the negotiation path because the party has left it no other option,” stressing that Hezbollah does not have the ability to obstruct this process, “even if it is capable of influencing its outcomes by virtue of holding the war-and-peace card.”
For his part, Nader notes that the Lebanese delegation “will raise issues related to Israel’s withdrawal from the south, the return of displaced people to their villages, in addition to the prisoner file,” but he points out that “the United States and Israel link any progress in negotiations to the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons.”
In the absence of decisive indicators that the negotiations will produce a stable de-escalation, Lebanon remains stuck between a war that has not effectively ended and a truce that has not yet succeeded in imposing stability.
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
