How did the Lebanon-Israel talks proceed in Washington?

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed-upon time and place following a trilateral meeting hosted by the United States in Washington on Tuesday, the US State Department said in a statement.

The US described the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in more than 30 years as a “huge accomplishment".

“What I've learned as a diplomat, sometimes just having the meeting, getting all sides in the room, is a huge first accomplishment,” US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said.

The meeting on Tuesday at the State Department brought together Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad and Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, State Department Counsellor Michael Needham and Waltz.

Why did the two sides meet?

Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed more than 2,100 people and displaced more than one million since March 2, despite international calls for a ceasefire.

Israel has also carried out a ground invasion in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel resumed fighting following the killing of Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in an Israel-US attack on February 28.

In 2024, Israel targeted Hezbollah leadership and killed its members by exploding rigged pagers and walkie-talkies.

Israel also killed Hezbollah’s long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27 of the same year.

The two sides had maintained an uneasy truce since November 2024.

Lebanon proposed direct talks in a bid to stop the escalation.

Israel did not respond positively until last week, after its deadly bombardment hit several crowded commercial and residential areas in Beirut, sparking an international outcry and triggering threats by Iran that it would end a ceasefire with the United States, announced last week.

Since the US President Donald Trump announced the truce with Iran, mediator Pakistan and Tehran have said Israel’s war in Lebanon falls within the ambit of the deal, while Israel rejects this and maintains that it is not bound by the US-Iran ceasefire framework in Lebanon.

The talks marked a rare direct engagement between the two sides, though Hezbollah was not represented.

Naim Qassem, the leader of Hezbollah, called for the latest talks to be scrapped before they even began, describing them as "futile" and urging the Lebanese government to focus on confronting Israeli aggression.

What was said after the meeting?

Lebanese Ambassador Moawad called the meeting "constructive” but said she had also called for a ceasefire and insisted on "the full sovereignty of the state over all Lebanese land", among other issues.

Lebanon has characterised the Washington talks as an initial, exploratory step focused on securing a halt in Israeli attacks, Al Jazeera reported, quoting Lebanese culture minister Ghassan Salame.

Salame acknowledged that Lebanon entered the process with limited leverage but said the government is trying to “reassert state authority” and keep the Lebanese track distinct from wider regional negotiations involving Iran.

He added that Israel’s call for Hezbollah’s disarmament cannot be addressed quickly, warning that such a process would necessarily “take time” and could not be accomplished within a matter of days.

Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter hailed the "wonderful exchange" during direct peace talks, claiming the two countries were "on the same side".

"We enjoyed it together. We had a wonderful exchange of over two hours," Leiter told reporters following the talks.

"We discovered today that we're on the same side," he said.

What did each side aim for?

Nevertheless, at the heart of the talks were sharply different priorities.

President Joseph Aoun said he hoped the Washington talks would yield "an agreement on a ceasefire in Lebanon to start direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel."

Lebanon's foreign minister also said Beirut would use face-to-face negotiations to press for a ceasefire.

However, Israel did not quite enter the talks for negotiating a truce but is pushing for a long-term Israeli occupation inside southern Lebanon with Beirut’s approval, Israeli media reported.

According to Israel’s Channel 14, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer has formulated a plan to divide southern Lebanon into three zones and condition any Israeli withdrawal on the dismantling of Hezbollah.

The first zone would extend from the Israeli border to the so-called yellow line, roughly 7 to 8 kilometres inside Lebanon, where Israeli forces would maintain a long-term and intensive military presence.

The second zone would stretch from the yellow line to the Litani River, where Israeli forces would continue attacks against Hezbollah before gradually handing over control to the Lebanese army.

In the third zone, north of the Litani River, responsibility for Hezbollah’s disarmament would rest solely with the Lebanese army, the report said.

What do experts say?

Experts are sceptical about the prospects for the Israel–Lebanon talks, warning that deep political and structural constraints could limit any substantive outcome.

Nabeel A. Khoury of the Arab Centre in Washington said that without a broad national consensus inside Lebanon, the process risks failure or even backfiring, drawing parallels with the 1983 May 17 Agreement, which collapsed and contributed to prolonged instability and the rise of Hezbollah.

Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told France 24 the talks appear “largely symbolic and performative", arguing that participants lack the authority to deliver binding agreements and that any effort to pursue Hezbollah’s disarmament is unrealistic given the group’s military strength and the Lebanese state’s limited control.

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