Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday he is seeking direct talks with Beirut, a day after the worst bombardment of the war killed more than 300 people in Lebanon and placed Donald Trump’s US-Iran ceasefire in jeopardy.
Trump announced a ceasefire in the six-week-old Iran conflict late on Tuesday, just hours before a deadline after which he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilisation.
In Pakistan, authorities were preparing for the first round of US-Iran talks, locking down parts of the capital Islamabad.
But there was no sign Iran was lifting its near-total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused the worst disruption to global energy supplies in history, with Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon cited as a key sticking point.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said yesterday that Iran would take management of the Strait of Hormuz into a new phase.
The statement attributed to Khamenei was read on state TV. He has not been seen in public since he took over from his father, who was killed on the first day of the war.
In the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, just a single oil products tanker and five dry bulk carriers sailed through a strait that typically accommodated 140 ships a day before the war, accounting for around a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
Netanyahu, whose government rebuffed a historic offer for direct talks with Lebanon last month, said in a statement that he had given instructions to start peace talks as soon as possible, which would also include disarming Iran-aligned militant group Hizbollah.
“The negotiations will focus on disarming Hizbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon,” he said.
An hour before Netanyahu’s statement, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said he was working on a diplomatic track on this matter that was starting to be seen “positively” by international actors.
A senior Lebanese official told Reuters that Lebanon had spent the last day pushing for a temporary ceasefire to allow for broader talks with Israel, describing the effort as a ‘separate track but the same model’ as the US-Iran truce.
Israel was preparing to scale down its attacks in Lebanon, a senior Israeli official said.
Another Israeli official said talks with Lebanon were expected to begin in Washington next week.
Under a November 2024 US-brokered ceasefire accord that halted more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hizbollah, Lebanon agreed that only state security forces should bear arms, which means
Hizbollah must be fully disarmed.
But a bid the following year by the Lebanese army to disarm the group fell short, Israel said.
Hizbollah legislator Ali Fayyad said in a statement yesterday that the group rejected direct negotiations with Israel and the Lebanese government should demand a ceasefire as a precondition to further steps.
It was the first comment from Hizbollah after Netanyahu said his country would start talks immediately.
Washington, along with Israel, which invaded Lebanon last month in parallel with the war on Iran to root out Hizbollah, say Lebanon is not covered by Trump’s ceasefire.
But Iran and Pakistan, which acted as mediator, say it was explicitly part of the deal.
A Pakistani source said Pakistan was working on ceasefires for Lebanon as well as Yemen, where Israel has also hit Iran-aligned forces.
Earlier yesterday, Israel kept up its bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs and other parts of the country, Lebanese state media said.
Hizbollah announced at least 20 military operations yesterday, saying it had targeted Israeli vehicles on Lebanese territory as well as firing into northern Israel.
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