Trump says Israel and Lebanon leaders to hold talks after first high-level meeting in decades
WASHINGTON DC, UNITED STATES – APRIL 6: United States President Donald Trump holds a Press Conference at the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 6, 2026 in Washington DC, United States.
Celal Güneş | Anatolia | Getty Images
US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that talks between Israel and Lebanon would begin on Thursday and provided few details about the planned talks.
In a Truth Social post In a statement released just before midnight, Trump said he was “trying to create some breathing room between Israel and Lebanon.”
“It has been a long time, 34 years, since the two leaders spoke,” he added. Trump did not specify who would attend or where the talks would take place.
Announcement followed three-way meeting On Tuesday, US, Israeli and Lebanese officials held the first major high-level meeting between Israel and Lebanon since 1993. The three parties agreed to hold “productive discussions on steps towards opening direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon.”
At the meeting, the United States called for talks to go beyond the scope of the 2024 agreement and work towards a comprehensive peace agreement.
Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in November 2024 We agreed on a ceasefire After a year of conflict between the Jewish state and its Iranian proxy. This conflict was triggered after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The ceasefire in 2024 was broken when Hezbollah opened fire on Israel in March, dragging Lebanon into the Iran War. The USA and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In the weeks since, Tel Aviv has launched numerous attacks against Iran’s proxy Hezbollah, which has a stronghold in southern Lebanon.
Israel has since expanded its offensive beyond southern Lebanon to the capital Beirut, displacing more than a million people.
Qatar News Agency, The Lebanese Ministry of Health stated that as of April 15, the number of deaths in the country was 2 thousand 164 and the number of injured was 7 thousand 61.
Israel’s parallel campaign in neighboring Lebanon – alongside its attacks in Iran – has been a sticking point in peace talks between Washington and Tehran.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament warned last Friday that talks to end the war cannot begin unless Israel stops attacks on Lebanon and the United States releases Tehran’s frozen assets.
Negotiations held in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad ended without the two sides reaching an agreement, despite Trump. said The New York Post wrote that new US-Iran talks in Islamabad “could take place in the next two days.”
On April 7, the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, but it was unclear whether it would apply to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said that Israel would begin negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible.”
