Attacks intensified Friday between Israel and Hezbollah as negotiations approached for a direct track mediated by U.S. diplomats, according to the Lebanese president’s office and Israeli statements. The talks are set to start Tuesday in Washington, with mediation carried out by U.S. diplomats, the office said in a statement after a call Friday involving Israeli, Lebanese and U.S. ambassadors.
The Lebanese side said the negotiations should be held under a ceasefire or truce. Later, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, issued a different characterization, describing the planned discussions as “formal peace negotiations” while also saying a ceasefire was not part of the agenda.
In Friday’s escalation, an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed at least 13 members of Lebanon’s State Security forces, according to the report. The strike was part of an assault launched across several towns in southern Lebanon, including an attack on a government building in Nabatieh that killed government security personnel. Hezbollah said it also attacked beyond the border, claiming an attack targeting a naval base in Ashdod, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) from the border, as it said it carried out multiple attacks on northern Israel and on Israeli ground troops that have invaded southern Lebanon.
The most recent intensification came after Israel launched a renewed aerial campaign and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon following Hezbollah rockets fired toward northern Israel in solidarity with Iran on March 2, the report said. In Lebanon, officials reported mounting losses during the latest phase of the war: Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 1,953 people have been killed in Israeli strikes, including at least 303 killed in a rapid series of 100 strikes that hit Lebanon in 10 minutes on Wednesday.
The fighting also raised fears in central Beirut, where civilian infrastructure sits close to reported strike activity. The report said officials at Beirut’s main government-run hospital near the southern edge of the capital fear it could be in the line of fire after the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for surrounding suburbs, including Jnah where the hospital is located. Israel has launched attacks in Jnah, “both with and without warning,” the report said, while civil defense first responders continued searching for bodies trapped under rubble in Beirut.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, called for Rafik Hariri University Hospital to be spared from attacks and said WHO officials received assurances Friday that it would not be struck. The hospital has not evacuated, but staff remain fearful, Dr. Mohammad Cheaito, head of the emergency department, told The Associated Press. “The entire zone around the hospital was threatened and deemed dangerous,” Cheaito said, adding that “at the end of the day, we have a humanitarian duty.”
Beyond the immediate battlefield, Lebanon’s diplomatic framing and Hezbollah’s posture toward talks remained in tension. The report said Lebanon hopes for a truce while Hezbollah supporters reject negotiations, and it cited a Lebanese official familiar with the developments who said a halt in fighting is a critical condition for Lebanon to engage in direct talks with Israel. The official said Lebanon has yet to appoint a representative for the negotiations.
Israel’s government, according to the report, had signaled its own approach ahead of the Washington track. Lebanon has not yet commented on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Thursday that the talks would go ahead; Netanyahu said the discussions would focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing “peaceful relations” between Israel and Lebanon.
Lebanon’s president’s office previously proposed direct talks early in the war, the report said, in terms that sought an end to escalation in airstrikes and avoiding an Israeli invasion of the country, but that effort had not succeeded. The diplomatic background also includes an earlier U.S.-Iran process: the report said that on Wednesday the U.S. and Iran announced a temporary ceasefire in the war that began Feb. 28, including Lebanon and other countries affected in the wider regional conflict, though Israel and later the United States denied that version and sought to separate the diplomatic tracks of the two wars.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Kassem, in a statement broadcast Thursday, did not directly mention the prospect of Israel-Lebanon talks, the report said, but called on the Lebanese government to “stop giving free concessions” to Israel. Supporters of the Iran-backed group protested outside the Lebanese prime minister’s office in central Beirut, viewing the scheduled talks as a surrender to Israel and saying Israeli troops would stay indefinitely in the country. Protester Hassan Shuaib said, “Our blood has been spilled on this land, and our state is conspiring against us,” and added, “Our state wants to kill us; our state wants to strip us of our weapons.”
At the center of the dispute is the question of what conditions, if any, should accompany diplomacy as fighting continues. For Beirut, the president’s office said the talks should be held under a ceasefire or truce, while Israel’s ambassador said ceasefire steps were not part of the agenda—setting up a sharp test of whether negotiations can begin in Washington with both sides prepared to pause violence.