Israel responding to negotiation offer through strikes: Lebanon

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Friday said Israel is responding to Beirut’s offer to negotiate by intensifying its air strikes, the latest of which killed a man riding a motorbike in southern Lebanon.

Despite a November 2024 ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, Israel maintains troops in five areas in southern Lebanon and has kept up regular air strikes.

Aoun had called for negotiations with Israel in mid-October, after US President Donald Trump brokered a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Lebanon is ready for negotiations to end the Israeli occupation, but any negotiation… requires mutual willingness, which is not the case,” Aoun said on Friday.

Israel “is responding to this option by carrying out more attacks against Lebanon… and intensifying tensions”, he added during a meeting with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.

Wadephul offered his support, stating that he would urge his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

“Israel must withdraw. I understand that Israel has security needs… But in fact, we now need a process of mutual trust-building,” the German minister said.

Wadephul also encouraged the Lebanese government to ensure there is “a credible, transparent and rapid process of disarming Hezbollah“.

He acknowledged that is “a mammoth task” but contended it is “a basic prerequisite for this country to experience stability and for there to be no further conflict with Israel”.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said an Israeli drone targeted a man on a motorbike in the village of Kounin on Friday. The health ministry reported one death and one person wounded.

The Israeli military claimed it had “eliminated… a Hezbollah maintenance officer” who was working to re-establish the Iran-backed group’s infrastructure sites in southern Lebanon.

Another air strike later in the day targeted another man on a motorbike in Nabatiyeh.

The strikes came a day after the Israeli military killed a municipal worker in a raid in the Lebanese border village of Blida.

Aoun ordered the army on Thursday to confront such incursions.

Hezbollah first began launching cross-border fire at Israel following the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023, kicking off a more than year-long conflict that culminated in more than two months of open war before last year’s ceasefire was agreed.

Israel, however, has never stopped carrying out air strikes on parts of Lebanon – usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah positions – and has stepped up the attacks in recent days.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 25 people in October, including one Syrian, according to an AFP toll based on figures from the Lebanese health ministry.

On Tuesday, the spokesman for the UN rights commission, Jeremy Laurence, said Israeli forces had killed 111 civilians in Lebanon since the ceasefire went into effect.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi asked his visiting German counterpart on Friday to “help put pressure on Israel to stop its attacks”.

“Only a diplomatic solution, not a military one, can ensure stability and guarantee calm in the south,” Raggi was quoted by the NNA as saying.

He added that “the Lebanese government is continuing to gradually implement its decision to place all weapons under its control”.

Hezbollah was badly weakened during the war, and the United States has intensified pressure on Lebanese authorities to disarm the group. The militant group opposes the plan.