Lebanon will demand that Israel implement a ceasefire during face-to-face talks in Washington on Thursday, a senior Lebanese official said, as Israel and Hezbollah continued to trade fire despite a U.S.-backed truce declared last month.
The talks between Israeli and Lebanese envoys will be the sides’ third meeting since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah reignited on March 2. Beirut is attending despite strong objections from Hezbollah.
The war, fought in parallel with the U.S.-Iran conflict, has continued since U.S. President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire on April 16, though hostilities have largely been contained to southern Lebanon. The ceasefire is due to expire on Sunday.
With Lebanon’s Health Ministry reporting 22 people killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday, including eight children, the senior Lebanese official said the Lebanese delegation would seek “a ceasefire that Israel implements.”
The IDF said Thursday that an explosive drone launched by Hezbollah fell inside Israeli territory near the border, wounding several Israeli civilians. The military also said it carried out a new wave of strikes on Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said it carried out 17 attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s decision to pursue the talks reflects deep divisions in Lebanon over Hezbollah, which was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982. The Lebanese government has sought Hezbollah’s disarmament since last year.
When the April 16 ceasefire was announced, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah’s disarmament would be a central Israeli demand in any peace talks with Lebanon.
The Washington meetings mark the highest-level contact between Israel and Lebanon in decades.
Both Israel and Lebanon are broadening their delegations for this round, after the sides were represented by their ambassadors to Washington in the previous two meetings.
Lebanese presidential special envoy Simon Karam and Israel’s Deputy National Security Adviser Yossi Draznin will take part in the talks, along with senior Israeli military representatives, a State Department official said. The talks are due to take place Thursday and Friday.
The U.S.-led mediation between Israel and Lebanon is unfolding alongside diplomacy aimed at ending the U.S.-Iran conflict. Iran has said that ending the war in Lebanon, which Hezbollah triggered when it opened fire in support of Tehran on March 2, is one of its demands for a deal over the wider conflict.
Trump hosted the previous meeting between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to Washington in the Oval Office, saying at the time that he looked forward to hosting Netanyahu and Aoun in the near future and saw “a great chance” the countries would reach a peace deal this year.
Aoun later said the timing was not right for a meeting with Netanyahu, and that Lebanon must first secure “a security agreement and a halt to the Israeli attacks” before raising the issue of a meeting between them.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam told Al Arabiya on May 10 that Lebanon’s priorities in negotiations were strengthening the ceasefire, securing a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal and winning the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.