Lebanon: What Prospects for Peace?

A precarious calm has returned to Lebanon, although ceasefire violations are on the rise. Judging by conversations with Lebanese friends, a sense of hope is already re-emerging - despite a fifth of the population being displaced, thousands of deaths, widespread destruction and the extraordinary fragility of the current truce.

Unexpected US Re-engagement

As we know, this ceasefire was imposed on Israel by the United States on April 17; it had been preceded by an initial meeting in Washington between the Israeli ambassador and his Lebanese counterpart on the 14, and was followed by a second meeting between Israeli and Lebanese officials on April 23. The US intervention is surprising at first glance, given that for several months, no one in Washington (that is, within Trump’s inner circle: the only centre of power that matters in this administration) had been dealing with this issue. Israel appeared to have carte blanche.

A few hours prior, within ten minutes, an Israeli airstrike had killed more than three hundred people-mostly civilians-in the suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, under the pretext of eliminating a Hezbollah cell. By that point, the US administration had already been putting pressure on Israel to secure a ceasefire: the massive strikes of April 8 were likely a kind of defiant message from Netanyahu to Trump. The US president was unaware of this when Emmanuel Macron called him (Fox News had presumably not mentioned it) and he admitted that Israel’s behaviour was unacceptable. Consequently, the US president would soon ‘prohibit’ (per his words on his social media) Israel from continuing the bombing, and urge both sides to continue the dialogue initiated through the ambassadors in Washington.
 
From that point on, Trump and his advisers fully understood the political capital he could derive from this situation. Firstly, in terms of image: that is why the second Israeli-Lebanese meeting took place in the Oval Office on April 23, in Trump’s presence, with the usual media fanfare. Secondly, in terms of diplomatic tactics: it is rather advantageous for Washington to separate the negotiations with Iran (from which Israel is excluded) from the negotiations on Lebanon (where Israel is directly involved). For Lebanon, the US’s renewed engagement is obviously good news, even if Beirut may fear the Americans’ heavy-handed approach. And finally, both Israel and Lebanon also have a mutual interest in ‘decoupling’ from the negotiations with Iran.
 
Against this backdrop, how might the situation develop from here? The two sides, speaking to one another for the first time in decades, have divergent objectives in the talks that are now beginning. For Lebanon, the primary aim is to restore full sovereignty over its entire territory and to seek progress on fundamental issues such as the demarcation of the border with Israel. For Israel, the primary - and legitimate - concern should be the neutralisation of Hezbollah; but, as we know, in the minds of the current leaders of the Jewish state, this may imply the equivalent of a ‘right of pre-emptive pursuit’ even in the event of a ceasefire agreement (see ‘Hamas precedent’).
 
It is for this very reason that the Lebanese are entitled to wonder whether Mr Netanyahu’s government is not in fact seeking to expand its ‘security zone’ by surrounding itself with ‘buffer zones’, including southern Lebanon (i.e. following the model of Gaza, but also of southern Syria). The State of Israel now occupies a zone 6 to 10 kilometres wide stretching from the Shebaa Farms to the sea south of the Litani River. Not only has it driven out the inhabitants of this area, but it has also demolished more than fifty Shiite villages that had previously been bombarded with all manner of projectiles; it has also bombed to pieces the villages located in the area of southern Lebanon that it does not occupy.

Even if all these doubts could be dispelled, the question of Hezbollah would remain. "The Party of God" had lost a great deal of support in Lebanon, even within the Shia community, by taking the ill-advised initiative (in all likelihood on the orders of the Revolutionary Guards) to attack Israel in the aftermath of the outbreak of the April War. The ferocity of the Israeli response enabled it to regain some of its legitimacy. It has once again become difficult for the government in Beirut to proceed with its commitment to disarming the group.
 
The Lebanese authorities maintain, however, that they have taken decisive steps in this direction: President Aoun’s firm stance, the legal framework for the disarmament of Hezbollah adopted by the government (with three out of five Shia ministers voting in favour of these provisions), and, above all, control of Beirut airport and the borders with Syria, making it more difficult to obtain weapons from abroad.
 
Our view is nevertheless that to see Hezbollah’s transformation through to the end, it will take time and strong support from the international community. If Israel refuses to understand this, all our Lebanese contacts tell us that the entire country would prefer "war with Israel to civil war with the Shias".

On Not Despairing Over the Situation in Lebanon

Faced with these sudden developments in Lebanon, French leaders appear torn between relief that the bloodshed has ceased - at least for the time being - in a country that has always been close to us, and frustration at being sidelined from any resolution, particularly due to an Israeli veto.

To this we might add the paradoxical role of adviser to Trump, that, as we have seen, Mr Macron sometimes finds himself playing: who else, for example, will explain to the man in the White House that his idea of a direct meeting between Aoun and Netanyahu is, for the time being, utterly impossible to implement, as no Lebanese leader can take the risk of meeting the Israeli Prime Minister under the current circumstances?
 
Another source of hope for Lebanon lies in Saudi Arabia’s renewed engagement, likely spurred by the risks that the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations pose to the regional balance of power. For Riyadh, as well as other capitals in the region, the aim is to ensure that Lebanon returns to the ‘Arab axis’, that is to say, escapes the dual influence of Iran and Israel. We are therefore seeing Saudi emissaries, as in the period leading up to the Taif Agreement (in 1989, at the end of the Lebanese civil war), shuttling between the various community leaders in Lebanon and seeking to influence Washington. The Saudis are well placed to argue to the White House that Lebanon can enter into a peace agreement with Israel but not, at this stage, into Abraham-type agreements (recognition of Israel) or agreements involving multifaceted cooperation.

Copyrights image : Alex WONG / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP
President Donald Trump in the Oval Office with the Israeli ambassador to the United States, the U.S. vice president, the U.S. secretary of state, and the Lebanese ambassador to the United States, on April 23, 2026.