The Lebanese government of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam seem to be intent on joining an alliance of the US and Israel against Hezbollah. The Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors in Washingon met at the State Department yesterday for about two hours and the Lebanese side appears to have come out with nothing. Middle East Eye noted that a ceasefire was not on the agenda, and the main subject of concern, Hezbollah, had no representation, leaving Lebanese officials with little to no authority coming into the meeting.
“I know some of you were shouting questions about a ceasefire,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters. “This is a lot more than just about that. This is about bringing a permanent end to 20 or 30 years of Hezbollah’s influence in this part of the world and the—not just the damage that it’s inflicted on Israel—[but] the damage that it’s inflicted on the Lebanese people.”
Israel has killed more than 2,000 Lebanese citizens and displaced more than one million others since March 2, is razing entire towns in southern Lebanon to the ground and is intent on establishing a buffer zone like that in Gaza from which they likely have no intention of ever leaving.
“We discovered today that we’re on the same side of the equation,” Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter told reporters after the meeting. “That’s the most positive thing we could have come away with. We are both united in liberating Lebanon from an occupation power dominated by Iran called Hezbollah.”
In a statement, Washington reaffirmed its position that Israel has a “right to defend itself,” while Israel demanded “disarming all non-state terror groups and dismantle all terror infrastructure in Lebanon.”
Beirut’s reply has been to call for all sides to uphold the Biden administration’s November 2024 ceasefire agreement, which Israel has violated thousands of times. That deal, however, does include the disarmament of Hezbollah as a next step.
Hezbollah has insisted that it cannot disarm while Israel remains a threat to Lebanon, and as Israeli officials normalise rhetoric about expanding Israel’s borders northward. On Monday, Hezbollah’s secretary general, Naim Qassem, called for the Washington meeting to be cancelled. “We reject negotiations with the usurping Israeli entity,” he said. “These negotiations are futile and require a Lebanese agreement and consensus.”
At least 35 people died and 159 were injured after Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon during the past day, the country’s health ministry said, reported TASS. “The overall death toll since the outbreak of the ongoing armed escalation has climbed to 2,124, with 6,921 people being injured,” it said in a statement posted on its X page. According to the ministry, 168 children and 254 women are among those killed.
