Direct, face-to-face talks were held today between Israeli and Lebanese Ambassadors. The talks are historic, at least in the sense that direct talks between the two nations are exceedingly rare, but little was expected of them, and even less seems to have come out of them.
The talks were held in Washington D.C. and conspicuously didn’t include one of the sides involved in the fight, Hezbollah, who made it clear that they wouldn’t consider themselves bound by any deal that the two sides agreed to, though it doesn’t seem any deals were reached at any rate.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem called the talks “futile,” saying that the Lebanese government holds no cards in this situation, and that they should simply insist that the November 2024 ceasefire with Israel finally be implemented.
Talks held in Washington D.C. | Image from State Dept.
Though that ceasefire was nominally in place from November 2024 until March 3 when Israel formally launched a new invasion, Israel was attacking Lebanon on a near daily basis during the ceasefire, killing hundreds of people, and never actually withdrew ground troops from southern Lebanon, which was required by the ceasefire.
The new talks weren’t enough to even halt Israeli strikes for the few hours that the talks were taking place, either, as multiple Israeli airstrikes were reported across southern Lebanon concurrent with today’s talks.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio conceded before the talks that no deal was really expected from the talks, but insisted that Hezbollah was to blame for the situation along with “Iranian aggression.” The United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February, a war that expanded into Lebanon when Israel invaded it again on March 3.
The on-again, off-again ceasefire reached with Iran last week was reported at the time to also include Lebanon, though fairly quickly Israel insisted that wasn’t the case, and actually substantially escalated the war on Lebanon, killing hundreds of people.
