Lebanon has proposed direct talks with Israel for the first time in decades, breaking a taboo even as the country faces heavy fighting linked to Hezbollah and the wider Iran conflict, according to Lebanese officials. However, those officials said any negotiations would be possible only after the current fighting ends, and they cautioned that it may already be too late to secure that outcome.
The proposal comes amid Israeli airstrikes rocking Beirut and Israeli troops advancing against Hezbollah, Lebanon’s government said while Hezbollah’s rockets and drones continued into Israel. The fighting has killed some 880 people in Lebanon and driven more than a million people from their homes, the Associated Press reported.
In a backdrop that Lebanese officials described as increasingly existential, Hezbollah has presented its campaign against Israel as part of its entry into a wider Iran war, while Israel has threatened a wider ground invasion and the seizure of territory, with an aim that Lebanese officials say could worsen damage to civilian infrastructure. The United States, which has mediated during prior flare-ups, has shown “no interest” in stepping in this time around, according to the AP report.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s opening offer of direct negotiations came last week, when he proposed talks with Israel for the first time since the 1982 Israeli invasion during Lebanon’s civil war. Aoun also asked for a boost in funding for Lebanese troops and reaffirmed his commitment to disarm Hezbollah, a longstanding Israeli and U.S. demand, the report said. Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment about the offer, but Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, during a visit to an Israeli town hit by an Iranian missile, denied that any talks were planned.
Lebanese officials familiar with the discussions said Lebanon wants fighting to end before any negotiations with Israel begin, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The AP report said Hezbollah and its weapons have been at the center of Lebanon’s political and security dilemma since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, when the agreement that ended the war called for disarmament of all armed groups.
The Lebanese government, even when led by political rivals of Hezbollah, largely refused to confront the group directly. The arrangement rested on fears that any attempt to disarm Hezbollah by force could rekindle civil war, and on the view that Hezbollah was more powerful than Lebanon’s armed forces.
In the years leading up to the current war, however, Lebanon’s calculus shifted, according to the AP report. The report said that in 2024, Israel killed most of Hezbollah’s top leaders and pummeled its armed wing, potentially opening space for Lebanese authorities to exert greater control. Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who took office in early 2025, pledged to disarm Hezbollah and said the position had wide support among Lebanon’s war-weary population.
In the months before the outbreak of the current fighting, the Lebanese government deployed troops across parts of southern Lebanon and said it dismantled more than 500 Hezbollah warehouses and military positions, the report said, but it did not confront Hezbollah directly. After Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel days after a surprise U.S.-Israeli bombing of Iran, Lebanon condemned Hezbollah, outlawed its activities, and arrested several militants it accused of illegal weapons possession—steps the report said came after the country had already been pulled into another war.
Hezbollah has continued to reject any direct talks with Israel and has portrayed itself as Lebanon’s only viable defense. It accuses Israel of violating a 2024 U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement by continuing regular airstrikes that often killed civilians and refusing to withdraw from five strategic border points, the AP reported.
Israel, for its part, said Hezbollah is in violation of agreements that require it to disarm and that its airstrikes are intended to prevent attacks. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement last week that the Lebanese government “will pay an increasing price in infrastructure damage and territorial loss until the commitment to disarm Hezbollah is fulfilled,” according to the AP report.
Hezbollah officials denounced the talks offer and blamed the government for failing to stop Israeli strikes or the occupation of border areas, the report said. Mahmoud Qamati, a senior official in Hezbollah’s political bureau, called the offer of talks “a concession and a big mistake,” in light of “the ongoing occupation and aggression,” telling Al Jazeera that “This move would be stabbing the resistance in the back. The state cannot make any promises without the resistance’s approval.”
Diplomatically, Lebanon has often sought the United States during previous blow-ups, but the AP report said Washington appears preoccupied with the wider war and its impact on the global economy. Randa Slim, director of the Middle East Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said there was “no senior official in the White House focusing on Lebanon,” according to the report, and said the talks offer was unlikely to gain traction or avert an Israeli invasion.
The report also cited Ed Gabriel, president of the American Task Force on Lebanon, as saying the United States and Israel had emphasized to Lebanese authorities that “how important it was to control Hezbollah from doing anything offensively.” He said Hezbollah’s actions had “set back for the time being any resolution of this war and created a lack of confidence by U.S. officials that the (Lebanese armed forces) can control and disarm Hezbollah.”
As Israeli troops advanced deeper into southern Lebanon, the report said the military struck and destroyed bridges and key roads and issued evacuation warnings for an area stretching dozens of miles north of the border. With Lebanon in the grip of a severe, yearslong financial crisis, the government has scrambled to provide shelter and aid for almost one million displaced people and has urged the international community to press Israel to spare key infrastructure such as Beirut’s airport and seaport, according to the AP report. Aoun, the report said, continued making diplomatic calls from the presidential palace as drones circled and airstrikes echoed in the distance.
Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.