Lebanon and Israel are to hold new peace talks in Washington starting Thursday, as their latest ceasefire — considered to still be in place despite hundreds of deaths in Israeli strikes — nears its end.
On the eve of the negotiations, Lebanon’s health ministry said that 22 people, including eight children, were killed Wednesday as Israel intensified airstrikes.
The attacks pounded about 40 locations in Lebanon’s south and east, according to the country’s state-run National News Agency (NNA).
The two nations last met on April 23 at the White House, where US President Donald Trump announced a three-week ceasefire extension and voiced optimism for a historic agreement.
Trump at the time made the bold prediction that, within the latest ceasefire period, he would welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to Washington for a historic first summit between the countries.
The summit did not happen, with Aoun saying a security deal needed to be in place and Israeli attacks needed to end before such a landmark meeting.
The ceasefire, which went into effect on April 17, had been extended through Sunday.
Still, Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 people during the truce, according to an AFP tally based on figures from Lebanese authorities.
Israel has vowed to keep pursuing attacks against Hezbollah, the Shia armed group and political movement backed by Iran’s ruling clerics, despite the ceasefire.
Hezbollah began a campaign of firing into Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the US-Israeli war on February 28.
“Anyone who threatens the State of Israel will die because of his actions,” Netanyahu said last week after an Israeli strike in the heart of Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander.
A Lebanese official told AFP that the country would seek “the consolidation of the ceasefire” during the talks in Washington.
“The first thing is to put an end to the death and destruction,” the official told AFP on custom of anonymity.
Iran has demanded a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon before any agreement to end the wider war, as it has frustrated Trump by refusing his appeals for an accord on his terms.
The Middle East war has spread throughout the region, roiling the global economy and impacting hundreds of millions worldwide.
Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday the Israeli leader “paid a secret visit to the United Arab Emirates” during the conflict and met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The UAE, which has been frequently targeted by Iran during the war, subsequently said it “denies reports circulating regarding an alleged visit” by Netanyahu.
It also denied “receiving any Israeli military delegation in the country”.
Pressure on Hezbollah
More than 2,800 people have died in Lebanon since Israel launched the strikes in early March, including at least 200 children, according to Lebanese authorities.
Hezbollah said that toll includes its fighters.
Israel has pounded areas of Lebanon with large Shia populations, including Beirut’s southern suburbs, and has invaded the border region, seizing control in an area it occupied from its 1982 Lebanon war until withdrawing in 2000.
The United States has backed Lebanon’s calls to maintain sovereignty over all its territory but also repeatedly pressed it to take action against Hezbollah.
The United States “recognizes that comprehensive peace is contingent on the full restoration of Lebanese state authority and the complete disarmament of Hezbollah,” a State Department statement said.
“These talks aim to break decisively from the failed approach of the past two decades, which allowed terrorist groups to entrench and enrich themselves, undermine the authority of the Lebanese state, and endanger Israel’s northern border,” it said.
It will be the third round of talks between the two countries, which have no diplomatic relations.
Unlike the last round, which Trump brought to the White House, or the first round, neither Secretary of State Marco Rubio nor Trump will participate as the president is on a state visit to China.
The US mediators for the two-day meeting at the State Department will include the ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon — respectively Mike Huckabee, an evangelical pastor and staunch supporter of Israel’s regional ambitions, and Michel Issa, a Lebanese-born businessman and golf partner of Trump, as well as Mike Needham, a close aide to Rubio.
Lebanon will be represented by special envoy Simon Karam, a veteran lawyer and diplomat who has fiercely defended Lebanon’s sovereignty, as well as its ambassador in Washington.
Israel’s team will include its ambassador in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, a Netanyahu ally who is close with the Israeli settler movement in the occupied West Bank.
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