Netanyahu Opens Direct Talks Track With Lebanon as Strikes Continue

More than 300 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, and within a day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had authorized direct negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible.”

The statement opened a diplomatic track between two countries that have technically remained at war since 1948. But it did not signal a halt in fighting. Netanyahu said in a video statement, cited by AP, that there was no ceasefire with Lebanon and that Israel would keep striking Hezbollah until security was restored in northern Israel.

According to AP, talks were expected to begin next week at the U.S. State Department in Washington, with planning handled on the American side by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa and on the Israeli side by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter. It was not immediately clear who would represent Lebanon.

That split between diplomacy and battlefield pressure is now the core fact of the story. In Jerusalem and Washington, the authorization for direct talks was presented as a possible boost to wider ceasefire efforts after the U.S.-Iran war. In Beirut, the sequence looked different: Israeli bombardment first, negotiations later.

Al Jazeera reported that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said he was pursuing a diplomatic track that was being viewed “positively” by international actors. Lebanon’s cabinet also instructed security forces to tighten state control over weapons in Beirut, with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam saying arms should be restricted to legitimate authorities alone.

Hezbollah did not meet Netanyahu’s announcement with reciprocal enthusiasm. Al Jazeera quoted Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad as rejecting direct negotiations with Israel and saying Lebanon should demand a ceasefire before any further step. An official source told the network there would be no talks before a ceasefire was secured.

That condition matters because the scope of the wider regional truce remains disputed. Israel and the United States have said Lebanon was not included in the two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire announced earlier this week. Iran and mediator Pakistan have framed the arrangement more broadly, according to Al Jazeera and scan reporting reviewed for this article.

The disagreement is not academic. It determines whether strikes in Lebanon are seen as violations of a fragile de-escalation effort or as military action outside it. AP reported that the wider truce was already strained by Israeli bombardment of Beirut, uncertainty over whether negotiations could find common ground and continued limits on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

On the ground, the military facts remain harsh. Al Jazeera reported that Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed at least 303 people and wounded more than 1,000 in Lebanon, prompting Salam to declare Thursday a national day of mourning. The network also reported continued bombardment into Thursday, including shelling in Bint Jbeil, while Hezbollah announced operations against Israeli targets.

The United Nations said Israel had issued evacuation orders covering about 15% of Lebanese territory since the conflict began on March 2, according to Al Jazeera. The network said more than 1.2 million people had been displaced and that at least 1,888 people had been killed in Lebanon, citing Lebanese health authorities.

The political aims of the proposed talks are ambitious. AP said Netanyahu described them as focused on disarming Hezbollah and establishing relations between the neighbors. That would place on the table issues that have resisted mediation for decades: militia power, border disputes, the status of Israeli troops on Lebanese territory and the possibility of any formal normalization.

Regional framing already diverges. AP described the launch of direct peace talks as a significant achievement even while warning agreement would be difficult. Al Jazeera placed the same announcement inside a day of mass casualties and presented Lebanese officials as insisting that a ceasefire must come first.

Those two lenses can coexist. One measures the opening of a diplomatic channel. The other measures who is still dying while that channel is being prepared.

For now, the next concrete test is not rhetoric but whether the Washington meeting happens on schedule next week and whether Lebanon sends delegates before a formal ceasefire is secured.