Conflict between Hizbullah and its rivals in government has been escalating for the past week following the announcement that Beirut and Tel Aviv have entered direct political talks — the first in decades.
President Joseph Aoun said the purpose of talks between Lebanon and Israel is “to avoid a second war”, in reference to the conflict that erupted between Hizbullah and Israel from October 2023 to November 2024.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam denied that his government is seeking to normalise relations with Israel, stressing that “Lebanon is committed to the Arab Peace Initiative,” a plan proposed at the Beirut Summit by the late King Abdullah Al Saud and adopted by the Arab states, which stipulates that diplomatic relations with Israel can be normalised only on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Lebanon and Israel have no diplomatic relations and have officially been in a state of war since 1948.
Salam, a former judge at the International Court of Justice, said that Lebanon is “far removed” from diplomatic normalisation or economic relations with Israel, adding that the move towards direct negotiations between the two countries aims simply to defuse tensions.
“I believe that an agreement between Lebanon and Israel is not on the agenda of Lebanon’s leadership at present, whether for Aoun or Salam,” said Rabha Allam, an expert on Lebanese affairs. “The problem is Israel’s failure to abide by the terms of the truce, having instead exploited the ceasefire to expand its control of Southern Lebanon.”
Since the ceasefire last year, Israel has continued to bomb Lebanon on the pretext of targeting Hizbullah members. According to estimates by the Lebanese Ministry of Health, 335 people have been killed in the nearly daily Israeli strikes, in addition to 973 wounded.
Although Hizbullah has completely withdrawn from areas south of the Litani River and handed them over to the Lebanese army, Israel has not completed its withdrawal from all Lebanese territory, citing a “need for strategic points”.
Hizbullah Secretary General Naim Qassem said on Friday that “the participation of a civilian delegation in the mechanism committee violates the fundamental condition requiring the cessation of hostility by the enemy. You have offered a free concession that will change nothing in the enemy’s position or its aggression.”
On 3 December, Lebanese and Israeli civilian delegates had met as part of the mechanism monitoring the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, which began a year ago. Qassem saw the meeting as “a free concession that placed Lebanon under pressure.”
The US website Axios reported on 3 December that Lebanese and Israeli civilian delegations met with the US delegation sponsoring the talks in the Lebanese border town of Naqoura, the headquarters of the United Nations peacekeeping forces, UNIFIL, “to discuss economic projects.” Salam denied the news, saying that “economic relations amount to normalisation, and we are far from that.”
Axios quoted an unnamed American source described as being familiar with the talks saying the two sides had agreed to meet again before the end of the year. The meeting was the 14th in the series held by Lebanon’s military committee, the “Mechanism,” in Naqoura to monitor the ceasefire reached by the two sides in late November 2024 under US sponsorship.
Lebanon had dispatched its former ambassador to Washington, Simon Karam, while Israel was represented by Ori Resnick, deputy director of foreign policy at the Israeli National Security Council, alongside Morgan Ortagus, the US deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace. Along with Israel and Lebanon, the committee includes representatives from the United States, France and UNIFIL.
It appears that direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel were held to spare Lebanon a second war, given the imminent expiry of the US deadline for beginning the disarmament of Hizbullah at the end of this year. This, despite statements by the US envoy for Syria and the Middle East that Hizbullah cannot be disarmed by force.
The authorities in Beirut fear that the end of the US deadline for Hizbullah’s disarmament could encourage Israel to resume its war against Lebanon on the pretext that Lebanon is stalling in implementing the plan to place all weapons exclusively under state control. During the Israeli war on Lebanon, nearly 4,000 Lebanese were killed and more than 15,000 wounded, while one million people were displaced as a result of Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling. The vast majority of the dead, wounded, and displaced were affected between September and the ceasefire in late November 2024.
Lebanon’s infrastructure suffered losses amounting to nearly $3 billion, with around 100,000 housing units partially or fully destroyed, most of them in the southern suburbs of Beirut and the south of the country, where Hizbullah and the Shia community are concentrated.
“The most pressing issue in Lebanon today is achieving broad national consensus that would allow Beirut to manoeuvre relatively easily in confronting Israel on the one hand, and addressing the regional situation on the other,” said Allam.
Since August, the government has instructed the Lebanese army to draw up a plan for the disarmament of Hizbullah, the largest armed force outside state control. But disarming Hizbullah requires more time than the end of the year or even a few additional months, according to Allam.
“The plan to place all weapons under the exclusive authority of the state is what most requires consensus. Although there is solid agreement among the Lebanese regarding the army’s presence south of the Litani River, disarmament is another matter,” Allam said. “The withdrawal of Hizbullah from areas south of the Litani is what Lebanon agreed to, but Israel exploited President Donald Trump’s return to the White House to expand its demands to include the complete disarmament of Hizbullah.”
The “exclusive weapons” plan has turned into a deep crisis. Hizbullah and its supporters reject it, considering it an “American-Israeli dictate” imposed on the entire country, while supporters of the new government view exclusive state control over weapons as the first step towards establishing effective state authority. The government itself has been divided, with Shia ministers allied with Hizbullah walking out of the session discussing and voting on the plan last September.
“But no one in Lebanon has an interest in confrontation, civil war, or heightened political tensions,” Allam noted.
Still, Hizbullah cannot hand over its weapons without concrete guarantees protecting its political position and its supporters, especially since these weapons have given it power at times that allowed it to dominate Lebanon’s political scene — and such guarantees have not yet been forthcoming.
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