With Israel extending its military entrenchment in Lebanon by the day, Lebanese president Joseph Aoun has again urged negotiations, arguing that diplomacy is the only way to halt escalating air strikes and a growing ground incursion in south Lebanon.
On Sunday, he defended his outreach to Israel, saying it was the only way to prevent Lebanon from turning into another Gaza. “It may be that Israel wants to operate in southern Lebanon as it does in Gaza, but our duty is not to drag it into doing what it does in Gaza,” he said. “Negotiations are not surrender. Gaza is destroyed, and more than 70,000 have been killed, and only afterwards do they negotiate. We have no choice but to negotiate to stop the tragedy in Lebanon.”
Israel has still not responded to Lebanon’s call for a ceasefire to facilitate talks. And shortly after Mr Aoun’s comments, Israeli aircraft resumed bombing Beirut’s Dahiyah quarter, a Hizbullah stronghold.
David McWilliams: How the energy crisis could plunge Ireland into recessionIsrael launched its attacks on Hizbullah after the Iranian-backed group fired rockets at Israel, a few days after the start of the Iran war.
Mr Aoun repeated his criticism of the Shia group, accusing it of undermining internal stability and dragging Lebanon into conflict.
“Anyone who harms civil peace is serving Israel,” he said. “And that is worse than the Israeli attacks.”
For residents of Israel’s border, hardly an hour goes by without sirens sounding warning of incoming Hizbullah projectiles, giving them less than 30 seconds to dash to a protected space. Northern residents and mayors reacted angrily over the weekend when a senior general warned that the fighting in Lebanon, in its current format, will not result in Hizbullah’s full disarmament, saying that only the occupation of all of Lebanon could ensure that. The comments seemed to contradict promises by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in recent weeks that the establishment of a security, or buffer, zone, in south Lebanon will ensure quiet in the Galilee.
Hizbullah suffered a crushing military defeat in 2024 after its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated and many of its senior commanders were killed. But its resilience has surprised Israeli military planners. The group is still managing to fire 150 or more rockets and drones at Israel every day.
Video on social media from April 4 shows heavy smoke rising over a plant in Iran’s Mahshahr petrochemical zone after reported Israeli airstrike. (Reuters)
The Israel Defense Forces has seized the second line of border villages, 8-10km inside Lebanon, buffering Israeli border communities from anti-tank missiles and removing the threat of a Hamas-style border incursion.
The future of Israel’s Lebanon war lies with US president Donald Trump. After he ends the Iran war, will he push Israel towards a political solution by engaging with the Beirut government, or will he allow the Israeli military to escalate?