Within hours of the two-week truce coming into effect between Iran and the US-Israeli axis, Israel launched its most intensive wave of airstrikes across Lebanon since its invasion of Beirut in 1982.
The bombardment targeted residential areas and other civilian structures at peak daytime hours without prior evacuation warnings. Lebanon’s emergency relief and healthcare system was completely overwhelmed. Over 250 people were killed and more than 1,100 injured, according to an initial estimate by the Lebanese Civil Defence authorities, while searches continued for missing persons and victims trapped under the rubble.
This latest attack brought the total number of casualties since the conflict resumed on 2 March to 1,953 dead and 6,303 wounded.
Israel claimed it was targeting Hizbullah elements, but the pattern of destruction shows that the aim was to wreak maximum indiscriminate carnage. Around 50 Israeli fighter jets carried out more than 100 strikes within ten minutes against locations ranging well-beyond Israel’s usual focus on Dahiyeh and Southern Lebanon.
Not only did the bombing focus on residential quarters across Beirut, as well as in Tyre and Sidon, but it also abandoned the “precision” strike approach in favour of bringing down entire multi-storey apartment buildings, leaving hundreds of casualties of diverse backgrounds.
In unleashing these attacks against Lebanon, Israel sought to accomplish a number of objectives. The first was to exploit the ambiguity over whether Lebanon was included in the US-Iran truce agreement in order to deliver a surprise blow to Hizbullah, which had been preventing the advance of the Israeli ground offensive.
Iran maintained that Lebanon was covered by the truce, and Hizbullah adhered to it until the Israeli offensive, after which it resumed rocket fire into Israel.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also stated that Lebanon was included in the truce. However, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied this, adding that the Israeli army was continuing “routine” operations in Lebanon.
Towards the end of the day, US President Donald Trump repeated the Israeli position, effectively giving Israel the green light to continue its campaign against Lebanon.
This relates to Israel’s second objective, which was to separate the trajectory of its war against Lebanon from that of the US-Israeli war on Iran. Tel Aviv feared that if the US-Iranian negotiations in Pakistan succeeded, despite its efforts to undermine them, it would have to cut off its mission in Lebanon prematurely.
Israel also wanted to make Iran appear indifferent to the fate of the Lebanese. Tehran maintained its truce with the US-Israeli axis despite the Israeli strikes on Lebanon, while continuing to insist that Lebanon should be included in the truce to be negotiated with US officials in Pakistan.
The Lebanese government declared that only it had the authority to negotiate on behalf of Lebanon. But this was never tested, as the talks in Islamabad failed to reach an agreement, confirming Israel’s success in separating the Lebanese track from the Iranian one.
As the situation stands, Iran remains committed to its truce with the US, while Lebanon faces a different reality: it is exposed and vulnerable to the ongoing Israeli aggression, which is likely to expand with no clear end in sight.
Just as the Lebanese were trying to absorb the shock of the horror Israel had inflicted on their country, Tel Aviv delivered a different kind of blow by announcing its acceptance of an initiative by the Lebanese president to engage in direct negotiations to end the war.
The US State Department said it would facilitate direct talks through its ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, with both sides represented by their ambassadors to Washington. The first session of the anticipated negotiations took place on 14 April in the US capital, less than a week after the deadly 8 April strikes.
In this way, Israel achieved its third objective of sowing the seeds of internal strife in Lebanon. The Lebanese are sharply divided between supporters and opponents of negotiating with the aggressor state at a critical moment when people are still searching for the remains of their loved ones beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
Public anger thus erupted in Lebanon at the news of the negotiations. Protesters marched towards the Grand Serail, the seat of government in Beirut, chanting slogans denouncing Prime Minister Nawaf Salam as a Zionist puppet and carrying placards saying that “he does not represent us.”
In response, the government ordered the Lebanese army and security forces to clear the roads, prevent gatherings near government buildings, and confiscate all weapons not belonging to the state. Salam also delivered a formal address urging the Lebanese people to heed the lessons of the Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s.
Both Hizbullah and the Amal Movement reject negotiations with Israel before the declaration of a genuine ceasefire, the implementation of UN Resolution 1701, and the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from all Lebanese territory. They also oppose the principle of direct negotiations, insisting instead on indirect talks to avoid any semblance of political recognition of Israel.
The Lebanese government, on the other hand, claims the sovereign option to enter direct negotiations and to reclaim the Lebanese negotiating authority from any external party – especially Iran – to ensure that the state alone has the decision-making power on matters of war and peace.
The Lebanese political forces are divided between those that will accept negotiations only after the cessation of hostilities and those that call for immediate talks under any conditions.
While the Lebanese negotiating delegation is in Washington to seek an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied Lebanese territories, and guarantees against further Israeli aggression, the Israeli negotiators are continuing to demand the immediate disarmament of Hizbullah even as Israeli forces continue to bombard Lebanon as a means to keep up the pressure on the government.
Some argue that in choosing to engage in direct negotiations with Israel the Lebanese government has offered a needless concession. Not only has Israel offered nothing comparable in return, but it continues its aggression and military advance in the south.
Supporters of the direct negotiation option, however, argue that the government is obliged to make every possible effort to halt the war to save the country from total destruction.
But the Lebanese state possesses nothing to use as leverage in its negotiations with Israel. It can cite the provisions of international law, which criminalise Israel’s military actions and territorial occupation, but the text of the law alone is powerless to stop Israel, which flouts it routinely and with impunity.
Just hours before the negotiations were set to start, Netanyahu, his Defence Minister Israel Katz, and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir reviewed Israeli forces in Southern Lebanon. This provocative visit sent a clear signal that Israel holds the cards to dictate its terms to the Lebanese government.
The strained relationship between the Lebanese state and Hizbullah further weakens the government’s position in any negotiations. At the same time, any attempt to disarm the group by force would bring the Lebanese army face-to-face with a large segment of the Lebanese people and courting the very spectre that Nawaf has warned of.
The Lebanese people are exhausted, with over a million displaced and fearing prolonged exile from land falling under Israeli occupation, while civilian infrastructure throughout the country remains under the constant threat of bombardment.
Israel, on the other hand, occupies strategic territory, possesses overwhelming military force, and is backed by the US, which lets it pursue its operations in Lebanon as it sees fit.
Time is also on Israel’s side. It is under no pressure to end the war, and it has no desire to do so. Keeping the Lebanese battle theatre alive serves Netanyahu’s electoral interests.
The US mediator seems set to serve these interests as well. With its unmitigated pro-Israeli bias, Washington can hardly be relied upon to support balanced initiatives that serve both sides.
Clearly, a new type of mediator is needed, one capable of offering a more equitable and impartial framework.
Egypt could emerge as one of the best candidates for the role, since Lebanon needs Arab backing to support its right to oppose foreign occupation and to help restrain the Israeli impulse to unleash excessive force.
Cairo maintains good relations with Washington and has previously played crucial mediating roles, whether in Gaza or in facilitating the Islamabad negotiations in cooperation with Pakistan and Turkey.
However, activating the Egyptian role in the current Lebanese context would require proposals for a realistic and durable solution that would bring a definitive halt to the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.
The difficulty is that these proposals would have to be acceptable to Washington for it to compel Tel Aviv to accept them. This is linked to the durability of the truce between Iran and the US and perhaps also to the prospects of another round of negotiations once the latest US escalation in the Strait of Hormuz fails to impose new facts on the ground.
The Iranian and Lebanese battlefronts and even negotiating tracks may be decoupled, but the same cannot be said of the prospects of peace. The truce between the US and Iran may hold without an end to the war in Lebanon, but the reverse is not true as there can be no truce in Lebanon without an end to the broader conflict.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 April, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
Short link: