U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a phone call with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Friday, hours after the start of a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The two agreed that Israel and Lebanon would begin the next round of peace talks in Washington on Tuesday.
“Secretary Rubio underscored that Lebanon’s bilateral negotiations with Israel represent the only feasible path to reconstruction, economic recovery and ending recurrent cycles of violence,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott stated. “They discussed the next round of negotiations, scheduled for June 23-25 in Washington, where the two sovereign governments will make progress toward a lasting peace. Secretary Rubio reiterated the need to disarm Hezbollah and to re-establish control over all Lebanese territory.”
The Lebanese readout of the call was broadly similar, while mentioning that Aoun emphasized “the necessity of halting Israeli aggressions on Lebanese territories.”
Israel renewed major ground operations in Lebanon in response to Hezbollah attacks in March, shortly after the United States and Israel launched the war against Iran. Israel currently occupies large portions of Lebanon’s south as a security zone intended to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure and to act as a buffer between Hezbollah and northern Israel.
The United States and Iran agreed to “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon” as part of the Memorandum of Understanding that the two countries agreed to on Sunday.
The U.S.-negotiated linkage between the Iranian and Lebanese theaters has provoked outrage in Israel, as Israeli forces have continued to come under fire from Hezbollah despite previously negotiated ceasefires.
Four Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed on Friday morning in a Hezbollah drone attack before the latest ceasefire was put into place.
Those deaths prompted Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to declare that “for every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep” and that “all of Lebanon must burn.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel hit some 150 Hezbollah targets and killed “dozens of terrorists” in response to the killing of the soldiers.
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said that Israel halted “offensive operations” in Lebanon at 4:30 a.m. Eastern time on Friday. A ceasefire between the two sides entered into effect hours later.
Leiter said Israeli forces would remain in Lebanon until they have “rid the area of Hezbollah.”
With the continued violence threatening to undermine the U.S.-Iran deal, U.S. President Donald Trump told NBC News on Friday that he spoke with Jerusalem earlier in the day to ask them to agree to the latest ceasefire.
“I [have] always been good with Bibi,” he said, referring to the Israeli prime minister. “You just gotta calm down sometimes and use your head.”
Trump declined to say whether he had spoken with Netanyahu directly.
