Listen to this article
Estimated 5 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Lebanon and Israel held their first direct diplomatic talks in decades in Washington on Tuesday, following more than a month of war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement that the U.S. affirmed that any ceasefire agreement between the two governments must be brokered by the U.S., and underscored that the negotiations could “unlock significant reconstruction assistance and economic recovery for Lebanon and expand investment opportunities for both countries.”
Pigott said following the meeting that talks will continue, saying all sides “agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed time and venue.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had called Tuesday’s talks a “historic opportunity,” though he made clear no breakthrough agreement was immediately expected.
Rubio said the Trump administration is “very happy” to be facilitating the discussions, while noting that “we understand we’re working against decades of history and complexities” that will not be quickly resolved. Lebanon-based Hezbollah opposes the direct talks and was not represented, and the Iranian-backed militant group appeared to step up its fire on northern Israel as they began.
“But we can begin to move forward with a framework where something can happen, something very positive, something very permanent, so that the people of Lebanon can have the kind of future they deserve, and so that the people of Israel can live without fear,” Rubio said.
Representatives from Lebanon and Israel are holding direct talks in the United States for the first time in decades — but Hezbollah is rejecting the talks entirely. Here’s what’s at stake.
Despite Hezbollah’s outright rejection of the talks, they represent a major step for two countries with no diplomatic relations that have been officially at war since Israel’s inception in 1948. The latest round of fighting was sparked by Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, its key ally and patron, which the U.S. and Israel had attacked days before.
Rubio and U.S. United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz attended the opening of the session at the State Department, led by the U.S. Lebanon Ambassador Michel Issa, Israel’s U.S. Ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Lebanon’s U.S. Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad.
The Lebanese government hopes the talks will pave the way to an end to the war. While Iran has set ending the wars in Lebanon and the region as a condition for talks with the U.S., Lebanon insists on representing itself.
Hezbollah and other critics maintain that Lebanon’s government lacks leverage and that it should instead back Iran’s position.
On the day of the talks, incoming fire triggered non-stop drone and rocket alert sirens in Israeli communities near the Lebanese border. Hezbollah so far on Tuesday has claimed 24 attacks on northern Israel and on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
At least 2,124 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, the Health Ministry said, including hundreds of women and children. More than one million Lebanese are displaced. The deadliest day of the war took place last week, when Israel launched 100 airstrikes across Lebanon in 10 minutes, including in the heart of the capital, killing more than 350 people.
Lebanese president hopes for breakthrough
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement on X as the meeting started that he hoped it would “mark the beginning of ending the suffering of the Lebanese people in general, and the southerners in particular.”
The Lebanese government led by Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has called for negotiations with Israel despite objections from Hezbollah, reflecting worsening tensions between the Shia Muslim group and its opponents.
Wafiq Safa, a high-ranking member of Hezbollah’s political council, said on Monday that the group will not abide by any agreements that may result from the discussions.
“As for the outcomes of this negotiation between Lebanon and the Israeli enemy, we are not interested in or concerned with them at all,” Safa told The Associated Press.
“We are not bound by what they agree to,” he added in a rare interview with international media. He spoke next to a cemetery as an Israeli drone buzzed overhead.
Reconstruction efforts are underway after recent Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, ahead of scheduled peace talks between Israel and Lebanon, set for April 14 in Washington, D.C. Hezbollah rejects the talks and urges the Lebanese government to do the same. Lebanon’s pre-condition is a full ceasefire, something Israel is refusing to do.
Intense fighting continues in south Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, has said the goal is Hezbollah’s disarmament and a potential peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel. Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Netanyahu, said Monday that there will be no ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Hours after Tehran and Washington announced a truce last Wednesday, Israel launched more than 100 strikes across Lebanon, including in densely packed residential and commercial areas of central Beirut.
Israeli strikes on Beirut and its southern suburbs have halted since Wednesday, but intense fighting has continued in southern Lebanon.
And though the U.S.-Iran talks broke up without an agreement, Safa said Hezbollah has been informed that Iran “was able to obtain a cessation of attacks” in the entire administrative region of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, including Beirut’s southern suburbs — a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh.
The Lebanese state has been seeking to disarm Hezbollah peacefully since a war between the militia and Israel in 2024. Any move by Lebanon to disarm it by force risks igniting conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990. Moves against Hezbollah by a Western-backed government in 2008 prompted a short civil war.
The current government banned Hezbollah’s military wing after it opened fire on Israel last month.