On a chaotic Monday marked by shifting military threats and diplomatic posturing, former President Donald Trump announced that backchannel negotiations had produced a tentative agreement for a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, even as top officials from both Israel and key Hezbollah figures pushed back on the details of the deal. The announcement came hours after Israeli military authorities renewed forced evacuation orders for residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, triggering a fresh wave of civilian displacement and stoking widespread fears of an imminent full-scale assault on the densely populated capital district known as Dahieh.
In a post to his Truth Social platform, Trump laid out his version of the agreement, saying he had held two separate sets of talks to broker the truce: first with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and second, through intermediaries, with Hezbollah leadership. “I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,” Trump wrote. “Likewise, through highly placed Representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop – That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”
When Middle East Eye reached out to the White House press office to request clarification on which US official had spoken with Hezbollah as part of the backchannel, officials declined to comment beyond confirming that no additional information would be added to Trump’s public Truth Social post.
In the hours following Trump’s announcement, key Lebanese and Israeli leaders offered conflicting accounts that undermined the claim of a finalized ceasefire. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah released a statement Monday confirming the group’s support for a full, nationwide ceasefire across all of Lebanon, which he said must be followed by a full withdrawal of Israeli military forces from all occupied Lebanese territory. Fadlallah explicitly rejected any proposal for a partial truce that would spare Beirut from Israeli airstrikes in exchange for Hezbollah halting attacks on northern Israel, a framework that aligned closely with the deal Trump described.
Shortly after Fadlallah’s statement, the Lebanese presidency issued a confirmation that Hezbollah had agreed to a US-brokered proposal for a mutual halt to attacks across all of Lebanese territory. But Netanyahu immediately pushed back, asserting that Israel’s core policy toward Hezbollah remained unaltered. “I spoke with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not cease attacking our cities and citizens—Israel will attack terror targets in Beirut. This stance of ours remains unchanged,” Netanyahu wrote on his X account, adding that the Israel Defense Forces would continue all planned operations in southern Lebanon as planned.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reinforced this hardline posture, issuing a fresh warning Monday that “there will be no calm in Beirut” if Hezbollah continues its attacks on Israeli troops and communities in northern Israel. That warning triggered a new exodus of residents from Beirut’s southern suburbs, just days after many had returned to their homes following previous rounds of evacuation orders. Since Hezbollah launched cross-border attacks against Israel in October 2023 in support of its ally Hamas, Israeli military operations have killed more than 3,200 people across Lebanon. The 2024 November ceasefire brokered by the Biden administration has already been violated by Israeli forces more than 1,000 times, and the broader US-Israeli campaign against Iran that launched in late February has only intensified Israeli pressure on Lebanon, with Jerusalem demanding the full disarmament of Hezbollah.
Monday’s diplomatic chaos also unfolded against the backdrop of ongoing US-led negotiations between Israeli and Lebanese officials, a process that launched earlier this year with military-to-military talks hosted by the Pentagon last Friday. US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby led the meeting, which the Pentagon described as the opening of a “security track” to support ongoing political negotiations between the two sides. “The delegations engaged in productive, military-to-military talks focused on building practical frameworks for regional security and stability,” a Pentagon statement read, adding that outcomes from the security track would inform political talks led by the US State Department set to reconvene this week as the third round of such negotiations.
This diplomatic process began in late April, when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted direct talks between Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors in Washington, with a second, longer round of discussions held last month. The meetings marked the first high-level face-to-face engagement between the two countries in four decades, though Hezbollah has not been included in the talks: the US designated the group a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Founded in 1982 to oppose Israeli occupation of Lebanon, Hezbollah remains the most powerful military actor in the country and holds representation in Lebanon’s parliament. Rubio has framed the negotiations as more than just a bid for a temporary ceasefire, saying they aim to resolve decades of destabilization caused by Hezbollah’s influence. “This is a lot more than just about that. This is about bringing a permanent end to 20 or 30 years of Hezbollah’s influence in this part of the world and the – not just the damage that it’s inflicted on Israel – [but] the damage that it’s inflicted on the Lebanese people,” Rubio told reporters in April.
Many regional policy experts have expressed skepticism about the prospects for these talks to end the violence. “It’s certainly a good thing that the conversation took place, and it’s a good thing that the United States agreed to host it, even though it was…at a low level, purely exploratory,” Steven Simon, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton administration, told Middle East Eye earlier this year. “It’s really difficult to see how these talks will alter the course of combat operations, which are what shape the diplomatic environment and the diplomatic possibilities.”
Monday also brought fresh friction around ongoing talks between the US and Iran, which has provided training and support to Hezbollah since the group’s founding and remains its closest strategic partner. After Iranian state news agency Tasnim, which has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that Iran had suspended all talks with US mediators to protest Israel’s escalating attacks in Lebanon, Trump quickly pushed back on the claim in another Truth Social post. “Talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he wrote. According to Tasnim’s report, Iran suspended negotiations because Israeli violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon violated a core precondition for talks, and Tehran is demanding an immediate end to all Israeli military operations in both Gaza and Lebanon. The report also warned that Iran and its allied militias are prepared to block the Strait of Hormuz and open new front lines of conflict at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the entrance to the Red Sea if the Israeli offensive continues.