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President Donald Trump announced a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon to begin at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, after holding separate calls with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day.

“These two Leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10 Day CEASEFIRE,” the president wrote on Truth Social. He said he had directed Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “to work with Israel and Lebanon to achieve a Lasting PEACE.”

Netanyahu quickly convened his Security Cabinet to discuss the ceasefire as Trump announced it, according to Israeli reports, angering ministers who were informed through the media without having held a vote on it.

Trump added in a second post that he will be inviting Aoun and Netanyahu to the White House for “meaningful talks.”

Netanyahu said in a statement that he had agreed to the ceasefire “to try and advance the agreement we began discussing during the meeting of ambassadors in Washington” on Tuesday, which were the the highest-level discussions between Jerusalem and Beirut in over 30 years.

He said that Hezbollah had demanded Israel withdraw from all of Lebanese territory and wanted a ceasefire based on the “quiet for quiet” model, neither of which Israel agreed to. Instead, Netanyahu said the IDF will remain in Lebanon throughout the ceasefire in a “reinforced security buffer zone” of 10 km, broader than the five outposts the IDF maintained in Lebanon during the last ceasefire in November 2024.

“That is where we are and we are not leaving. This allows us, first and foremost, to block the danger of an invasion into our communities, and secondly, it allows us to prevent direct anti-tank fire into the communities,” the prime minister said.

In his posts, Trump did not reference Hezbollah, which had said prior to talks that it would not abide by any negotiated agreement though the text of the agreement released by the State Department said the Lebanese government will “take meaningful steps to prevent Hezbollah and all other rogue non-state armed groups in the territory of Lebanon from carrying out any attacks, operations, or hostile activities against Israeli targets.”

The agreement is a “gesture of goodwill” on Israel’s part “intended to enable good-faith negotiations” toward a permanent agreement, the text states, which “may be extended by mutual agreement” if Lebanon “effectively demonstrates its ability to assert its sovereignty” and prevents Hezbollah from attacking Israel.

The Lebanese government has agreed several times before, including in its November 2024 ceasefire agreement with Israel, to disarm Hezbollah so that it could no longer threaten or strike Israel, but Hezbollah maintains military capabilities and has continued to fire rockets and drones into the country.

A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute from late last week found 80% of Jewish Israelis think Israel should continue its military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, even if it causes friction with the U.S.

The first round of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon has been received positively by diplomats, pro-Israel lawmakers and experts, who see it as a sign of Hezbollah’s waning influence in Lebanon. But despite the optimism surrounding the discussions, experts caution that disarming the terrorist group remains a daunting obstacle that stands in the way of any meaningful change — one that would require a significant shift from the Lebanese government and its armed forces.

On Tuesday, Israeli and Lebanese leadership convened at the State Department in Washington for the highest-level direct discussions in more than 30 years, aiming to outline a framework for “lasting peace” and a “permanent end” to Hezbollah’s influence, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.  

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told Jewish Insider that “it is great” that talks are taking place, expressing hope that “the Lebanese government, the United States and the Israeli government make a deal, and collectively, they push Hezbollah out.”

“That way the Lebanese people can be freed from the Iranian extremism that they have in their country,” Moskowitz said. “The Lebanese people are being held captive by the Iranian government because of Hezbollah. It’s obviously good for the United States, it’s good for Israel, but more importantly, I think it’s good for the people of Lebanon. I think disarming Hezbollah is obviously key to all this.”

Moskowitz added that while the Lebanese government appears to want to disarm Hezbollah, “they probably need help.”

“It’s not going to happen overnight, but I think it’s historic, and this is what the entire region wants,” he said. “This is what the Gulf states want. Everybody wants to come out of the extremism and the terrorism that Iran is trying to spread in the region.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) similarly told JI that Hezbollah disarmament is an important factor in talks. 

“Why would you have talks if they [Hezbollah] are not going to disarm?” Scott said. “I’m not the prime minister of Israel but my condition would be that Hezbollah has got to disarm.”

Scott dismissed the notion that the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces have not done enough to disarm the group, stating that the main problem is “not caused by Lebanon or by the military of Lebanon, it’s caused by Hezbollah.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that disarming Hezbollah should be a “red line” for Israel in talks. He added that Israel “needs a buffer zone so Hezbollah can’t continue to rain down terror on Israelis.”

“Hezbollah has historically been the best trained, best equipped opponents to Israel,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said. “Israel’s done a great job with them over the last two years, but they’re hardcore fervent believers in destroying Israel.” 

Experts similarly described the talks as a meaningful development. John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, called the discussions an “important breakthrough” and a sign of Hezbollah’s diminishing influence.

“Everyone should welcome the opening of a direct political dialogue between Israel and Lebanon,” Hannah said. “The fact that [the talks are] occurring at all is an important sign of Hezbollah’s declining hegemony over the Lebanese state.”

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described the talks as a “win-win-win” in a social media post, adding that Hezbollah emerged as a “big loser.”

“Today is a day to celebrate — we all saw a glimpse of what is possible after so much violence and conflict,” Satloff wrote on Tuesday. “That is a very good thing.”

Still, experts say disarming Hezbollah, which parties agree is necessary for any lasting piece, remains highly difficult and uncertain.

Even before Tuesday’s opening round of discussions, Hezbollah senior member Wafiq Safa said Hezbollah is “not bound” by any deals reached between Israel, Lebanon and the United States.

“It’s hard to be an optimist when it comes to the core question of Hezbollah’s disarmament,” Hannah said. “Even after all that’s been done over the past few years to weaken the group and its Iranian sponsors — including the loss of its legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of Lebanese — it’s not at all apparent that the raw balance of forces inside Lebanon has shifted sufficiently to favor Hezbollah’s near-term demise.”

Hannah described disarming Hezbollah as “worth trying,” but ultimately a “long shot.”

“Since the war against Iran broke out on Feb. 28, Hezbollah has shown through its sustained attacks on Israel that, while much diminished, its forces retain far more significant capabilities than many believed,” he said. “And in the wake of its battle against Israel, Hezbollah is making clear that if push comes to shove, it’s prepared to burn down the state before surrendering its weapons.”

Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s vice president for policy, said the task cannot be accomplished through Israeli military action alone and will ultimately depend on whether Lebanon and the LAF are willing to act.

“[Disarming Hezbollah] can only be fully done by a strong and committed Lebanese government,” Misztal said. “Israel can secure southern Lebanon with ground operations and strike Hezbollah sites in Beirut or the Bekaa Valley, but that will merely distance and degrade the threat, never fully remove it.”

“The question is whether the Lebanese government is, or can be convinced to be, strong and committed enough to take on the task of asserting its control over its own territory,” he added. “Thus far, it has failed to demonstrate either the political will or military capability to do so.”

Hannah similarly noted that “Israel is rightly unwilling to pay the necessary cost in blood, treasure and diplomatic opprobrium” required to fully dismantle Hezbollah, leaving the responsibility to Lebanon and its armed forces.

“The factor that has truly held Lebanon back from disarming Hezbollah has been Hezbollah’s retention of, as far as we can tell, overwhelming support among Lebanese Shiites,” David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “Having retained that popular support, it can deter the government from pursuing forcible disarmament by dangling the threat of civil war.”

But experts weren’t optimistic that the Lebanese government and LAF are capable — or willing — to take on that role. Hannah said Lebanon’s military “doesn’t appear to have the stomach to truly confront Hezbollah and dismantle the group’s armed wing,” noting that it has already “failed” to disarm the group in southern Lebanon, “much less the rest of the country.”

“It seems even less likely than before the Iran war that the LAF would now be willing to take on the risk of massively confronting Hezbollah,” he said, “in spite of the misery Hezbollah’s unilateral decision to enter the conflict on Iran’s behalf is now inflicting on the rest of Lebanon.”

David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also said Beirut “ultimately holds the key” to resolving the issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament. He said that while Lebanon has taken “immense and commendable” steps in “proscribing Hezbollah’s military activities,” the country’s “unwillingness to act against Hezbollah has been missing from the equation” and has “allowed the group to regenerate in the past.”

He added that Hezbollah still “retains enough military strength to make disarmament daunting” for Lebanese forces and the LAF, and that the group continues to wield significant political power.

“The factor that has truly held Lebanon back from disarming Hezbollah has been Hezbollah’s retention of, as far as we can tell, overwhelming support among Lebanese Shiites,” Daoud said. “Having retained that popular support, it can deter the government from pursuing forcible disarmament by dangling the threat of civil war.”

Daoud also raised concerns about Lebanon’s intentions in negotiations, arguing that Beirut may not truly be seeking meaningful change.

“A good test will be the extent to which the LAF fulfills the Lebanese government’s order from early April to put all of Beirut under its full control,” John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said. “Will the LAF truly confront and disarm Hezbollah in the capital or simply repeat the phony disarmament it claimed to have completed in the south?”

“Lebanon is seeking to use the negotiations to return to the status quo, and is willing to ‘pay the price’ of a joint photograph with an Israeli ambassador to achieve that objective,” he said. “This is because the situation in Lebanon is indeed dire — economic collapse compounded by war, the direct impact of the war itself and the emergence of sectarian tensions that could boil over into full-on conflict.”

If those dynamics remain unchanged, he warned that Hezbollah could indefinitely delay disarmament and eventually rebuild its strength.

“A good test will be the extent to which the LAF fulfills the Lebanese government’s order from early April to put all of Beirut under its full control,” Hannah said. “Will the LAF truly confront and disarm Hezbollah in the capital or simply repeat the phony disarmament it claimed to have completed in the south?”

Satloff said the challenge will ultimately require translating diplomacy into “practical steps,” including a shift in how the Lebanese military approaches disarmament.

“While some of this can happen in the negotiating room when the parties meet again, nothing can substitute for strong measures by the Lebanese state to isolate, weaken, delegitimize and disarm Hezbollah while promoting the idea of peace,” he said.

He suggested that turning Beirut into a “true weapons-free zone” is necessary “but not sufficient,” pointing to additional steps such as removing Hezbollah officials from government, expelling Iranian operatives from the country and shutting down the group’s financial and institutional networks.

A popular “domino effect” meme circulates online every few months, linking slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s decision to launch the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks — the smallest domino — to a series of major geopolitical shifts across the Middle East. While both simplified and exaggerated, the meme underscores the dramatic reshaping of Middle Eastern power dynamics.

The next domino may be the decades-long fraught relationship between Israel and Lebanon, as Iran’s ironclad grip over the region loosens and its most powerful proxy, Hezbollah, finds itself increasingly weakened and marginalized in Lebanon, where it has for decades played a key role in the country’s politics and military. 

Those current geopolitical conditions — Iran at its weakest point in decades, successive levels of Hezbollah leadership removed from power through Israeli military actions, the degradation of Hamas and a new government in Syria that has separated itself from Tehran — laid the groundwork for yesterday’s State Department summit, convened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, between Israel and Lebanon.

The State Department meeting between the ambassadors from Lebanon and Israel took place as the U.S. navigates stalled talks and a tenuous ceasefire with Iran — which was initially on unstable ground as Iran demanded that Israel cease its targeting of Hezbollah as part of the ceasefire. 

A senior Israeli official told Jewish Insider on Wednesday that Iran’s effort to link the two conflicts was “a strategic trap with long-term ramifications.”

“There was real pressure to link the Lebanon front to the Iran ceasefire,” the official said. If President Donald Trump had acquiesced to the Iranian demand to link the two conflicts, the official continued, “We would not be on the path to peace that we’re on now. Keeping the arenas separate ultimately means that the fate of Lebanon is no longer dictated by Iran.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — now mounting a comeback bid ahead of elections later this year — has often used the “Octopus Doctrine” to describe a security approach to tackling Iran’s decades-long control over the region. Cut off the head of the octopus — Tehran — and the tentacles will be easier to tackle, the logic goes. 

Israel, having severed the metaphorical octopus’ head on the opening day of the recent war with Iran, is now continuing its work to degrade and dismantle Iranian proxies — a process that began two and a half years ago, triggered by the Oct. 7 attacks.

“One of the most significant developments in the Middle East since Oct. 7 has been the steady dismantling of that axis — separating arenas that sought to bind their fates together,” the senior Israeli official said. 

The talks are not without risk. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called off a planned trip to the U.S. over the weekend out of concerns of potential domestic unrest — amid the still very real risk that Hezbollah, albeit weakened, could attempt a power grab in his absence. Recall that in 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was killed in a car bombing, with a Hezbollah operative convicted by a U.N. tribunal in absentia for the assassination.

The talks were hailed by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, who said that the parties “discovered today that we’re on the same side of the equation” and “are both united in liberating Lebanon from an occupation power dominated by Iran called Hezbollah.”

Rubio delivered a measured assessment of the goals of yesterday’s talks: “This is about bringing a permanent end to 20 or 30 years of Hezbollah’s influence in this part of the world,” he said at a roundtable ahead of the meeting. “This will take time, but we believe it is worth this endeavor.”

Beirut has in recent years — and with varying degrees of seriousness and success — worked to disentangle itself from Iran and Hezbollah. Now, the U.S.-Israeli military pressure on Iran, combined with the Trump administration’s zest for dealmaking and the degradation of Hezbollah, could create the right environment to bring peace to the Mediterranean Riviera.

Sitting at a roundtable of Israeli, Lebanese and American officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized at the outset of negotiations between Jerusalem and Beirut that the talks are a “process” that will “take time,” stating that the objective of Tuesday’s meeting, the highest-level direct talks between the countries in over 30 years, is to “outline a framework upon which a permanent and lasting peace can be developed” and bring a “permanent end to Hezbollah’s influence” in the region.

“This is a process, not an event. This is more than just one day,” Rubio said. “All of the complexities are not going to be resolved in the next six hours … This will take time, but we believe it’s worth this endeavor and it’s a historic gathering that we hope to build on.” 

“We understand we’re working against decades of history that have led us to this unique moment and opportunity here,” Rubio added. “We have to remember, the Lebanese people are victims of Hezbollah. The Lebanese people are victims of Iranian aggression, and this needs to stop.”

Rubio said the parties want to provide the people of Lebanon “the kind of future they deserve, and so that the people of Israel can live without fear of being struck by rocket attacks from a terrorist proxy of Iran.” 

Taking part in the high-level talks between Israel and Lebanon on Tuesday in Washington were Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa and State Department Counselor Michael Needham. 

In a statement released by the State Department following the meeting, Washington indicated that any agreement “must be reached between the two governments, brokered by the United States, and not through any separate track.” The U.S. also expressed “support for further talks,” however it is not yet clear when the next round of discussions are expected to take place.

“All sides agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed time and venue,” the statement read. It also indicated that Israel “expressed its commitment to working with the Government of Lebanon to achieve … security for the people of both countries” as well as a “commitment to engage in direct negotiations to resolve all outstanding issues and achieve a durable peace that will strengthen security, stability and prosperity in the region.”

In his opening statement ahead of the talks, Leiter commended Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and his government “for not allowing itself to be held hostage to the threats of Hezbollah’s leader,” adding that the group belongs “to the past.” 

“I believe that we can, in good faith, accomplish the following interrelated goals: the complete dismantlement of Hezbollah, the freeing of Lebanon from Iran’s terror proxy and the achievement of a real, lasting and mutually celebrated peace for the benefit of our people,” Leiter said. “We also have the courage to pursue peace through strength, and to work tirelessly for tranquility and prosperity for all. Today, we pursue those values for ourselves and especially for our Lebanese neighbors of all ethnic denominations.”

After negotiations wrapped, Leiter struck a positive tone and said he was “honored” to sit at the negotiating table with Lebanese officials.

“We discovered today that we’re on the same side of the equation,” Leiter told reporters. “That’s the most positive thing we could have come away with. We are both united in liberating Lebanon from an occupation power dominated by Iran called Hezbollah.”

Similarly, Hamadeh also called the preliminary meeting “positive” and indicated that another round of talks is likely to take place. She stated that “the date and location of the next meeting will be announced at a later time.”

Tuesday’s negotiations were expected to focus on how Israel and Lebanon can work together to disarm Hezbollah and make peace between the countries. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the talks last week, saying he had shifted his position once the scope of the negotiations were expanded beyond just a ceasefire to also include disarming Hezbollah and working toward peaceful relations. Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi indicated that the direct talks are meant to show that the “Lebanese state alone holds the authority to negotiate on behalf of Lebanon,” rather than Hezbollah. 

The two nations currently share no formal diplomatic relations.

Hezbollah, however, has signaled it will not abide by any agreements and called on the Lebanese government to cancel the talks. Wafiq Safa, a high-ranking member of the group’s political council, stated prior to the meeting that the terrorist organization is “not interested or concerned with” the negotiations, saying the group is “not bound by what they [Israel, Lebanon and the U.S.] agree to.”

The negotiations took place against the backdrop of a massive Israeli strike in Beirut last week targeting Hezbollah. The recent round of hostilities was triggered on March 2 when Hezbollah launched rockets at northern Israel days after Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran.

The talks have also received significant support from European and Western nations, with foreign ministers from 17 countries, including the U.K. and France, calling on the two countries to “seize the opportunity presented by the U.S.-Iran ceasefire,” per a joint statement.  

Even if a deal is reached, major hurdles lie ahead as it remains unclear whether Lebanon possesses sufficient influence to hold Hezbollah to any potential agreements. While the group is a major political party with seats in the Lebanese parliament, its militia operates largely independently of the government, receiving funding and direction from Iran. Although a growing number of Lebanese officials and civilians view Hezbollah as an intrusive arm of Iranian interference, the group remains a powerful, independent force within the country.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will convene the ambassadors from Israel and Lebanon in Washington on Tuesday for the highest-level direct talks between the countries in over 30 years.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh will represent their countries, with U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa and State Department Counselor Michael Needham also taking part in the meeting.

The negotiations are meant to focus on how Israel and Lebanon can work together to disarm Hezbollah and make peace between the countries.

A State Department official said the talks are “a direct result of Hezbollah’s reckless actions,” and “will scope the ongoing dialog about how to ensure the long-term security of Israel’s northern border and to support the Government of Lebanon’s determination to reclaim full sovereignty over its territory and political life.”

“Israel is at war with Hezbollah, not Lebanon, so there is no reason the two neighbors should not be talking,” the State Department official said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam canceled a planned visit to the U.S. this week to monitor the situation from Beirut and “safeguard the security of the Lebanese people and preserve national unit,” he wrote on X. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the talks last week, marking a shift in his position from earlier in the Lebanon campaign that began after Hezbollah joined Iran in attacking Israel in late February. Netanyahu said over the weekend that he had agreed to the talks because they would not only be about a ceasefire, but about disarming Hezbollah and working toward peace with Lebanon. President Donald Trump said at the time that he asked Israel to “low-key a bit” the strikes in Lebanon. 

Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi posted on X that the direct talks “in practice reinforced the separation between the Lebanese file and the Iranian track. … The Lebanese state alone holds the authority to negotiate on behalf of Lebanon.” 

The talks are set to take place as Hezbollah continues to launch rockets and drone attacks at northern Israel on a daily basis and the IDF continues to target Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The IDF said it struck about 150 Hezbollah targets on Monday, and it continues its ground operations in the Iran-backed terrorist organization’s stronghold of Bint Jbeil. 

The IDF cleared for publication on Tuesday the name of Sgt.-Maj. Ayal Uriel Bianco, who was killed in battle in Lebanon.

Netanyahu visited IDF troops in Lebanon over the weekend, and praised them on Monday for “pushing the enemy away from the border” and creating “a solid, deeper security zone that both prevents the danger of invasion and distances the anti-tank missile threat.”

American and Iranian officials are meeting on Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan, to begin conversations aimed at ending the conflict that has consumed the Middle East since late February. Though much change has occurred in the last six weeks, the decisions made in the next two could determine the future of the region for decades to come.

The “fog of diplomacy,” as The Washington Post’s David Ignatius put it, has shrouded much of what is known about the talks and their contours. The first 24 hours after the ceasefire was announced saw dueling — and often conflicting — statements, denials and claims about various points, including the inclusion of Lebanon in the agreement, Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and the status of the Strait of Hormuz, that were proposed and supposedly agreed to by the parties.

Those sticking points deepened in the days between the ceasefire announcement and Saturday’s meeting in Pakistan. On Wednesday, Israel conducted widespread strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and operatives whom the IDF said had embedded in civilian areas, while Hezbollah has launched dozens of missiles into Israel — including one fired at the southern city of Ashdod that also triggered sirens across Tel Aviv and surrounding towns early Friday morning. Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday accused Iran of “doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz.”

It is against that backdrop that Vice President JD Vance, joined by White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will enter into negotiations tomorrow in Islamabad. 

In tandem, a separate set of negotiations is slated to take place in Washington early next week, when the U.S. will convene the envoys from Israel and Lebanon for rare direct, public talks aimed at reaching a peace agreement between Beirut and Jerusalem. If reached — and if Lebanon takes meaningful action to demilitarize Hezbollah — Iran could lose its most powerful proxy in the region. Under pressure from Washington, Israel has limited its attacks on Lebanon.

While the inability to agree on the parameters for a ceasefire does not portend well for the ability to secure a more lasting agreement,both sides have a vested interest in reaching an accord that allows both to declare victory. Watching from the sidelines are Israel and the Gulf states, which will not be represented in Islamabad, and will instead have to hope from their respective capitals that the U.S. does not acquiesce to an agreement that emboldens Iran — and leaves the American allies vulnerable.

With the regime still intact — and still pledging destruction — Israel has reason to worry. Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, warned on Thursday night that “we definitely won’t allow the criminal aggressors who attacked our country to go unpunished.”

And even as Pakistan positions itself as a convener, its senior officials make clear it is not hosting talks as an impartial actor. On Thursday morning, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif posted on X — and later deleted — that “Israel is evil and a curse for humanity,” adding, “I hope and pray people who created this cancerous state on Palestinian land to get rid of European jews burn in hell.”

With elections in both the U.S. and Israel later this year, both Washington and Jerusalem have a vested interest in U.S. negotiators securing the best possible deal with Tehran. With rising fuel prices, the White House will want to project strength in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will need to convince voters that they are safer now than they were a year ago — and that Israel won’t find itself in an ongoing cycle of wars that bring the country to a halt for weeks on end every year.

But the longer-term questions remain. Will Iran, whose nuclear and ballistic missile programs were dealt significant blows, further conceal aspects of both? What degree of threat can Israel live with on its borders? How has the Iranian regime’s survival emboldened its allies in Beijing and Moscow? And what of the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have largely held their fire over the last six weeks?

Those are questions unlikely to be resolved in Islamabad in the coming days, but they are the ones that Israel and the West will have to grapple with once the dust from this war has settled.

Israel is working to launch direct negotiations with Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday.

“In light of the repeated requests from Lebanon to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the Security Cabinet yesterday to start direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,” Netanyahu said in a statement from his office.

Netanyahu’s announcement came as President Donald Trump said in a call with Israel’s Channel 13 that he told the prime minister to scale back its strikes on Lebanon. 

A source familiar with the matter told Jewish Insider that talks would begin next week in Washington, with the U.S. facilitating. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, will represent their countries in the talks.

The negotiations, Netanyahu said, will focus on disarming Hezbollah and making peace between Israel and Lebanon.

“Israel appreciates the call today by Lebanon’s prime minister to demilitarize Beirut,” Netanyahu stated.

Minutes after Netanyahu’s announcement, Hezbollah shot rockets at northern Israel. 

Earlier Thursday, the Lebanese cabinet told the armed forces to ensure its monopoly on force in Beirut, meaning that Hezbollah would not be able to operate in the city. 

“The army and security forces are requested to immediately begin reinforcing the full imposition of state authority over Beirut Governorate and to monopolize weapons in the hands of legitimate authorities alone,” Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said.

Meeting a day after Israel struck 100 targets in Beirut, the cabinet also decided to lodge a complaint against Israel with the United Nations Security Council. It called for Lebanon to be included in the current ceasefire in the Iran war.

Jerusalem and Washington have said that Israel’s war against Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire. 

Israel and Lebanon reached a ceasefire deal at the end of 2024, which was brokered by the Biden administration and supported by the incoming Trump administration. As part of the agreement, the Lebanese Armed Forces were meant to ensure Hezbollah was disarmed south of the Litani River, however, proved incapable of doing so, and the Shi’ite terrorist group amassed arms and fighters near the Lebanon-Israel border. 

The current round of fighting began soon after the war with Iran in late February, when Hezbollah began launching rockets, missiles and drones at Israel. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the Iranian proxy had shot 6,500 projectiles at Israel in 40 days.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has called to hold direct negotiations with Israel repeatedly over the past five weeks, including on Thursday.

“We will safeguard our vital interests under all circumstances,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, hours after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would suspend strikes on Iranian energy facilities to start negotiations. 

In a Hebrew video statement, Netanyahu tried to reassure the Israeli public that the war would end in a way that made the previous three weeks — in which they, not Americans, ran with their children to bomb shelters multiple times a day — worth it. He vowed that Israel would be “continuing to strike in both Iran and Lebanon.”

“Earlier today, I spoke with our friend, President Trump,” Netanyahu said. “President Trump believes there is an opportunity to leverage the tremendous achievements we have reached alongside the U.S. military to realize the goals of the war through an agreement, an agreement that will safeguard our vital interests.”

Behind the scenes, however, the phone call was not enough to reassure Jerusalem that Washington had its interests in mind, and Netanyahu dispatched his closest advisor, Ron Dermer, to deter the Trump administration from reaching a “not good” deal, Israel’s Channel 12 reported.

Note the word choice: “not good.” If negotiations are genuine and this is not another mind game by the Trump administration, Israeli officials were not so optimistic in their briefings to Jewish Insider and other Israeli media as to say there could be a good outcome from a deal that, de facto, would continue to recognize the mullahs’ regime — but perhaps a disaster could be averted.

Netanyahu used the term “vital interests” twice in his statement. The top interest on Dermer’s list is ensuring that the 440 kg of highly enriched uranium, the material that Iran boasted to White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was enough for 11 bombs, would be removed from Iran. According to Ynet, Witkoff made this demand clear, raising his voice on the phone to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi before the latter’s first overture last week to return to the negotiating table.

Arguably, this war succeeded in its other aim of significantly diminishing the ballistic missile threat from Iran. The IDF and Netanyahu said last week that the Islamic Republic’s missile production capability has been destroyed. The White House said, “Iran’s ballistic missile capacity is functionally destroyed.” Yet Iran has hundreds of missiles that it continues to shoot, along with drones, at Israel and Gulf states each day. Plus, as IDF international spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani pointed out to JI last week, the Islamic Republic could engage in the “hyper-production” of ballistic missiles after the war, as it did following last year’s 12-day June war.

Neither Trump nor Netanyahu went so far in their statements in the last month to promise regime change; they generally said it was up to the Iranian people to take to the streets. Yet, Trump has claimed that regime change has happened because so many Iranian leaders have been killed. The Israeli position is more like what former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman described on X: “The murderous Iranian regime does not hide its determination to destroy the State of Israel. We cannot leave an injured enemy that is only looking for revenge. We have a historic opportunity to solve the problem and topple the Ayatollahs’ regime. Otherwise, we’ll be back for another round with a much higher price.”

Which brings us to Netanyahu’s statement that Israel is “continuing to strike in both Iran and Lebanon.” He continued: “We are smashing the missile program and the nuclear program, and we continue to deal severe blows to Hezbollah.”

Israel is not the only country that views the fight as incomplete; Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in recent days took further steps to support the U.S. in its fight against Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported. Riyadh let the U.S. use one of its air bases and the UAE shut down Iranian assets, warning it could freeze billions more dollars. Bahrain submitted a draft U.N. Security Council resolution calling to use force to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, Reuters reported. 

Whether that will continue to be true if Trump makes a deal with the Islamic Republic, and whether the war in Lebanon will be able to go on as long as Israel seeks to push Hezbollah off of Israel’s border for the long term, remains to be seen. 

In the past year, there have been instances of dissonance between the U.S. and Israeli timelines and war goals: There was the Witkoff-brokered deal with the Houthis, which surprised Jerusalem and only stopped attacks on U.S. ships, not strikes on Israeli civilian centers; and the end to last June’s 12-day war, when Israel sought to respond to an Iranian breach of the ceasefire, and Trump responded with an f-bomb and public demand that Israel stop.

This could be the third time in the past year that Trump reaches a deal, stymying Israel before its leadership felt the time was ripe to end the fight.

Missile strikes from Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon resulted in over 100 casualties between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

One person was killed and another injured after two cars caught fire in the Upper Galilee from errant IDF shells that fell inside Israel, rather than Lebanon, an investigation by the military found on Monday.

MDA reported 15 wounded from missile fragments landing in numerous sites in Tel Aviv and central Israel on Sunday.

EMTs from the Magen David Adom emergency services, Taysir Subah and Safa Abu Rafea, said they “arrived at the scene and saw two vehicles on fire. During the firefighters’ extinguishing operations, we identified a man in the driver’s seat. We conducted medical assessments, he had no signs of life, and we had to pronounce him dead.”

On Saturday night, an Iranian missile struck the city of Dimona, about eight miles from Israel’s Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center. The direct hit caused extensive damage to several buildings in the city, injuring 31 people, including one who is in serious condition, according to MDA.

MDA EMTs Shai Binyamin and Gadot Vaknin said they were alerted by civilians on the street to elderly residents trapped in a safe room, whom they helped treat.

Three hours later, an Iranian missile struck Arad, a city near the Dead Sea. Emergency services in the area, which has seen fewer alerts than the rest of the country, evacuated 84 patients to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, including 10 in serious condition, among them children as young as four years old.

Yakir Talker, an MDA EMT, described “extensive destruction and chaos” at the scene. Another EMT, Riyad Abu Ajaj, said that “together with security forces, we conducted searches to locate additional patients. We provided medical treatment to many patients, including children.” 

At both scenes in southern Israel, the IDF Home Front Command led efforts to free people trapped in the rubble.

Schools in much of the Negev, which had been hit by fewer missiles than Israel’s center and north, were meant to reopen on Sunday. The IDF Home Front Command revised its guidelines to keep schools closed after Saturday night’s strikes. Schools have been closed since the start of the war with Iran late last month, and gatherings have been limited to 50 people near a shelter or safe room.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir met with the mayors of Metula and Kiryat Shmona, on the Lebanon border, saying that the IDF is “prepared for the enhancement of the forward defensive posture in the north.” In a later statement on Saturday, he added: “There is no more containment; there is initiative; there is preemptive action.” Last week, the IDF said it would increase ground operations in Lebanon.

“The more we strike and weaken Iran, the more we weaken Hezbollah,” Zamir added.

He also praised the “steadfastness and the resilience” of Israelis in the north, saying that they “enable us to continue striking and degrading the enemy.”

“We will not stop until the threat is pushed away from our border and long-term security is ensured for our residents,” he said.

This story was updated on March 23, 2026, to add the IDF investigation findings.

Current and former Israeli and U.S. officials suggested that an Israeli strike on an Iranian gas field on Wednesday that prompted the Islamic Republic to strike Qatar was coordinated with the White House, despite President Donald Trump’s claim that the U.S. “knew nothing about this particular attack.” 

Trump made the remarks in a Truth Social post, in which he threatened that the U.S. would bomb the South Pars gas field, the Iranian portion of the larger field shared with Qatar, if Iran does not stop attacking Qatar. 

“The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape or form involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen. Unfortunately, Iran did not know this … and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s [liquid natural gas] facility,” the president wrote.

If “Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” he added, the U.S., “with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.”

An Israeli official told Kan News, Israel’s public broadcaster, that the attack on the South Pars gas field was coordinated with the U.S.

Dan Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Pentagon official in the Biden administration, wrote on X, “Trump can post whatever he likes. But there is zero, I mean zero, chance the IDF would conduct a strike in that location without giving CENTCOM full visibility.”

“Trump knew (and approved),” Shapiro added. “Now he realizes it caused a major escalation with Iran’s (entirely unjustified) attacks on Gulf energy targets.” 

Shapiro later clarified that the Israeli strike “could not have been carried [out] without U.S. knowledge and explicit or implicit approval.” 

“It was predictable that strikes on Iranian energy facilities (by US or Israel) would lead to Iranian strikes on Gulf energy facilities,” he wrote. “There is a narrow window following the Israeli and Iranian strikes, and Trump’s Truth Social Post (untrue, but possibly useful in this context), to de-escalate away from further strikes on energy industry targets in either direction. That will still leave a very challenging situation to unwind, but [it] would be the best near-term development.”

Gilad Erdan, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and a former member of Israel’s Security Cabinet, told Jewish Insider that it was highly likely the U.S. knew about the strike, saying that Trump did not criticize Israel in his post, and “in the same breath” as saying the U.S. was unaware, “[Trump] himself threatened to erase the [gas] field.”

Erdan noted that the South Pars gas field is “used for Iran’s domestic energy needs [and] doesn’t harm the international energy market.”

“Israel took upon itself to be at the front [of the situation] in my estimation because the field is also Qatari,” Erdan, who is also a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security, said. “Someone had to send the deterrent message about the energy field to the Iranians, that if they continue, then all options are open against them and they will be hurt badly.” (The writer is a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute and cohosts its podcast.)

Yaakov Katz, an Israeli military expert and author of While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East, told JI that he agreed with Shapiro’s assessment. “There is no way Israel would attack such a strategic facility [without coordination] because they know it would draw the Iranians to attack the Gulf states,” he said. 

Katz pointed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s behavior since the war with Iran began late last month as further indication that Israel was unlikely to make such a move without coordinating with the U.S.: “Why would Netanyahu who behaved so carefully all throughout the war, coordinating with Trump to not upset him so he keeps the war going … do something that would anger Trump and potentially lead him to do something brash and declare the war is over?” 

“It was coordinated, and now Trump is saying what he’s saying to distance himself, but it was done to send a message to the Iranians,” Katz added.

Also Thursday, Saudi Arabia released a statement with the foreign ministers from Azerbaijan, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon and Egypt urging Iran to stop its attacks.

“The participants held Iran fully responsible for the losses and called on Iran to immediately and unconditionally cease its aggression and to comply with UN Security Council resolutions. The meeting also emphasized the dangers of supporting militias and destabilizing security, stressing that Iran must seriously reconsider its miscalculations,” the statement read.

If Iran continues, the foreign ministers stated, there will be “serious consequences for Iran and the security of the region, and will exact a heavy price, casting a shadow over its relations with the countries and peoples of the region, who will not stand idly by in the face of threats to their capabilities.”

Israel has a long history of conflict and military operations in Lebanon, and the IDF is now preparing for a broader ground incursion against Hezbollah.

What started with Operation Peace in the Galilee in 1982 to eliminate Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist cells attacking Israel’s north turned into an 18-year military occupation of southern Lebanon. It ended with a retreat under public pressure and a return to power for the enemy — Hezbollah, which was founded soon after the war began. Six years later, Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers, leading to the Second Lebanon War, and the terrorists attacked Israelis in Israel and abroad periodically over the subsequent 17 years.

After Hezbollah joined Hamas in attacking Israel a day after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Israel launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon and airstrikes against Hezbollah targets throughout the country, most famously killing the terrorist organization’s then-leader Hassan Nasrallah, and conducting its exploding pager operation in the fall of 2024. But a few months after taking out the group’s entire leadership, leaving in place an uncharismatic and apparently flailing Naim Qassem in charge, Israel, at the behest of the Biden administration, reached a ceasefire with Lebanon in November 2024.

According to that ceasefire, the Lebanese government and military were meant to disarm Hezbollah and ensure it stays out of the area south of the Litani River, some 17 miles north of the border with Israel. Late last year, Israel started to voice concerns that Beirut was not keeping its commitments and that Hezbollah was regrouping.

Now, Israelis are experiencing deja vu: Once again, Hezbollah joined an attack on Israel a day later — this time, from its main patron, Iran — and has frequently launched rockets and missiles at Israel’s north. Israel started out with airstrikes in response, then, over a week later, began limited ground incursions into southern Lebanon. The Lebanese government said a million residents — 20% of the country’s population — have been evacuated; the IDF has acknowledged about half that number. Israelis have not been evacuated from Israel’s north — the 2023-2024 policy was unpopular and many residents have not returned — but they are living under constant attack.

The IDF said on Monday that it is planning for “continued limited, targeted operations,” but there are clear signs that something more expansive is on the way. The IDF announced on Tuesday morning that Division 36 forces have joined the expansion of ground operations in southern Lebanon.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said he is sending “additional troops in order to strengthen the forward defensive posture, deepen the damage to Hezbollah and push the threat away from the communities in the north.” According to Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, “hundreds of thousands of Shi’ite residents of southern Lebanon … will not return to their homes south of the Litani until the safety of residents of [northern Israel] is ensured.” Katz said Israel will “destroy terrorist infrastructure in the villages abutting the border,” comparing the effort to the war against Hamas in Gaza.

Tal Beeri, head of research for the Alma Center, a think tank focused on Israel’s northern border, and himself a resident of Israel’s north, told Jewish Insider, “We can’t have another [military] campaign every few months or two years. There’s a whole region of Israel that can’t be dragged into war again and again. The blow that Hezbollah must receive right now must be strong enough.” 

At the same time, Beeri said he is not under illusions that Israel can eliminate Hezbollah: “Hezbollah is here to stay. It won’t disappear, even if the Iranian regime falls. … It will be much weaker, but it will exist. Therefore, Israel must continue a policy of strategically weakening Hezbollah. … Israel must be prepared to act to stop Hezbollah at any moment in the future.”

Based on the assumption that Hezbollah will survive, but must be kept “small and weak,” Beeri co-wrote Alma Center recommendations that would require long-term Israeli involvement in Lebanon, but less intense and ground-based than the quagmire Israelis remember from the 80s and 90s.

“There needs to be a buffer zone of at least 10 km [6.2 miles] from the border … with no civilian presence, because we learned … the villages become human shields for Hezbollah bases,” Beeri said. “The Lebanese government can’t maintain it.”

Still, he said, while the IDF must retain its current five positions on the Lebanese side of the border, a buffer zone “doesn’t require the permanent, physical presence of the IDF. It requires control that can be remote … with intelligence and observation points. ‘Presence’ doesn’t have to mean one thing; it can be flexible.” 

That flexibility should depend on how much responsibility the Lebanese government is able to take for southern Lebanon, once Hezbollah has been disarmed, though Beeri was skeptical that Beirut is able or even will want to do that in the short term — or ever.

For now, Beeri said, “Israel is expanding the [buffer zone] to distance the immediate threat from the north. … It will take time, one way or another.” 

Israel continued extensive strikes on Lebanon on Thursday morning, after Hezbollah shot about 200 projectiles at northern Israel the night before.

About 120 of the rockets and missiles crossed from Lebanon into Israel during the Wednesday night barrage, with those not intercepted mostly striking Israel’s north.

The Magen David Adom emergency service treated two individuals with mild injuries following the missile fire from Lebanon. 

A home, with the exception of its safe room, was destroyed, and two others were damaged in Moshav Haniel in Emek Hefer, a region of Israel 70 miles from the Lebanon border.

Soon after, Iran launched missiles at Israel, a move officials said likely indicated that the two Wednesday night barrages were coordinated between Tehran and Beirut.

A senior Israeli official briefed the media on Thursday morning that a significant expansion of operations in Lebanon would soon take place, but did not say whether that would include a broad ground invasion. 

Shortly after Wednesday night’s barrage began, the IDF announced “a large-scale wave of strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure in the Dahieh area of Beirut” while “interception efforts [were] ongoing.”

As part of that wave, the IDF struck 10 Hezbollah sites within 30 minutes, including an intelligence base and headquarters of the elite Radwan unit. On Thursday morning, the IDF reported launching 200 munitions from air and sea at 70 Hezbollah targets in Beirut.

“The Hezbollah terrorist organization has embedded its terrorist infrastructure in the heart of Beirut under the cover of the civilian population,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said.

IDF Spokesperson in Arabic Avichay Adraee posted evacuation warnings on social media throughout the night and morning. Over half a million residents of Lebanon have evacuated since Hezbollah joined the war on Iran’s side last week.

In addition, troops of the IDF’s Mountain Brigade operated in Lebanon near the border with Israel to locate and destroy rocket launchers and weapons storage facilities.

The IDF reported “a wide-scale wave of strikes in Iran” on Thursday. In addition, according to Israeli and other Middle Eastern media, Israeli drones have been striking checkpoints manned by Iranian paramilitary militia Basij. The checkpoints had been set up on central arteries throughout Iran to try to suppress an uprising and limit movement. 

The IDF intercepted Iranian missiles headed for Jerusalem on Thursday.

In addition to the two mild injuries from Lebanese missiles, Magen David Adom treated 45 people who were injured on their way to shelters or suffered from anxiety on Wednesday.

Since the start of Operation Lion’s Roar, MDA reported 759 physical casualties, of which 169 were caused by missile fire, including 12 fatalities.

Iran struck an oil tanker off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, the sixth such ship targeted in the Gulf over two days, after attacking two vessels in Iraqi waters overnight, killing one. Iranian drones struck an oil facility in Bahrain, an airport in Kuwait, an Italian military base in Iraqi Kurdistan and a tower in Dubai on Thursday morning. The Saudi Defense Ministry said it intercepted a UAV targeting an oil field. 

Also Thursday, Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch said that schools in northern Israel and the coastal strip, including Tel Aviv, are not expected to reopen in the coming days, while in other areas, school may reopen gradually, starting Monday.

Israel expanded its war effort against Iran to southern Lebanon on Monday after Iranian proxy Hezbollah launched rockets and drones at Israel overnight.

“We have launched an offensive campaign against Hezbollah,” Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, said in a situational assessment on Monday. “We are not only operating defensively — we are now going on the offensive as well. We must prepare for many prolonged days of combat ahead.”

The war against Iran and Hezbollah “requires strong defensive readiness and sustained offensive readiness, operating in continuous waves while constantly utilizing opportunities,” Zamir said.

On Sunday, Zamir also spoke of Israel’s “close cooperation with our most important partner — the United States of America. We are working in coordination with CENTCOM, with AFCENT, CENTCOM’s Air Force, and there is undoubtedly tremendous force here.”

Hours after Hezbollah launched rockets and drones at Israel at about 1 a.m. Monday, the IDF carried out strikes against dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and as far north as Beirut that extended into the morning. Targets included senior Hezbollah terrorists, command posts, infrastructure and a vehicle carrying operatives from the Sh’ia militia’s elite Radwan force. 

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday that Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem “decided on the attack under pressure from Iran [and] is from this moment a marked target for elimination.”

The IDF will “act forcefully against Hezbollah,” Katz added, “while continuing to advance the primary objective: crushing and defeating the Iranian terror regime and neutralizing its capabilities in Operation Lion’s Roar in order to remove the threats against the State of Israel and enable the citizens of Iran to rise up against the regime and overthrow it.”

The IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson issued evacuation notices for 53 villages in southern Lebanon.

“The IDF had previously prepared for the possibility of Hezbollah joining the hostilities,” the military spokesperson’s office stated. “In the Northern Command, combat forces were significantly reinforced along the border with both defensive and offensive capabilities. This preparation enabled a rapid and robust counterattack while maintaining full operational protection across all scenarios.”

The expansion of the war to a second front followed a month of smaller IDF strikes in southern Lebanon, as Hezbollah continued efforts to rebuild after Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and many other leading figures in the Iranian proxy group in late 2024.

As Operation Roaring Lion, as the IDF called its strikes on Iran, was launched on Saturday, the IDF called up 70,000 reservists to bolster its forces in all sectors, including the northern border, as well as Central Command, focusing on counterterrorism activity in the West Bank, and Southern Command, to defend the Yellow Line in Gaza and protect residents of southern Israel.

The IDF continued intercepting Iranian missiles on Monday, including over Jerusalem, where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was targeting the Prime Minister’s Office and the home of Air Force Commander Tomer Bar.

Israel confirmed that on the first day of the war, it eliminated 40 commanders, including the Iranian Armed Forces’ Chief of Staff Abdolrahim Mousavi, whose predecessor was eliminated by the Israeli Air Force last year. 

In addition, the IDF targeted the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, killing Sayed Yahya Hamidi, deputy minister of intelligence for ‘Israel affairs,’ who directed attacks on Jews around the world, and Jalal Pour Hossein, head of the espionage division, among others. 

The Intelligence Ministry reported directly to Iran’s supreme leader and was also a central tool through which Iran monitored citizens and provided intelligence for the violent suppression of protests. It has long been under U.S. sanctions. 

The IDF said that, in addition to missiles, the air force and navy have intercepted dozens of Iranian drones launched toward Israel. 

Late Sunday and early Monday, Iranian missiles struck Jerusalem twice, including one that landed right outside the walls of the Old City. 

The second strike, in a residential neighborhood, injured five, Magen David Adom reported.

On Sunday, 10 were killed as a result of missile strikes, mostly in a barrage that decimated a residential area in Jerusalem suburb Bet Shemesh.

Since the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion, there have been 12 fatalities in Israel. MDA reported 228 injuries.

Also Monday, Israel’s Energy Ministry instructed a halt on gas production at the Leviathan platform in the Mediterranean Sea. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) abruptly ended his meeting with Gen. Rodolphe Haykal, the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, on Thursday after Haykal declined to refer to Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Graham met with Haykal in his Senate office for a planned discussion on the latest military developments in Lebanon and the LAF’s approach to Israel and Hezbollah. The South Carolina senator wrote on X that he asked the Lebanese military official at the start of the meeting if he viewed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and did not appreciate the response he received. 

“I just had a very brief meeting with the Lebanese Chief of Defense General Rodolphe Haykal,” Graham said. “I asked him point blank if he believes Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. He said, ‘No, not in the context of Lebanon.’ With that, I ended the meeting.”

“They are clearly a terrorist organization. Hezbollah has American blood on its hands. Just ask the U.S. Marines. They have been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by both Republican and Democrat administrations since 1997 — for good reason,” he added. “As long as this attitude exists from the Lebanese Armed Forces, I don’t think we have a reliable partner in them. I am tired of the double speak in the Middle East. Too much is at stake.”

Haykal has been in Washington this week for meetings with U.S. lawmakers and Trump administration officials. Aside from Graham, Haykal met with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY), respectively the chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively. Haykal also met with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine and officials at the CIA, the Pentagon and the National Security Council.

He was previously slated to visit the U.S. in November, but scrapped the trip after Graham and others canceled their meetings over a statement Haykal released weeks prior that blamed Israel for the unrest in Lebanon without mentioning Hezbollah. Graham, who has visited Lebanon multiple times in the last year to encourage the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah and stabilize its border with Israel, warned in numerous statements responding to Haykal at the time that his position toward U.S.-Lebanon relations would likely shift if changes were not made. 

“It is clear that the Lebanese Chief Head of Defense — because of a reference to Israel as the enemy and his weak almost non-existent effort to disarm Hezbollah — is a giant setback for efforts to move Lebanon forward,” Graham wrote on X in November. “This combination makes the Lebanese Armed Forces not a very good investment for America.”

“The idea of the Lebanese military joining forces with Hezbollah to combat Israel would put in jeopardy everything that I and many others are trying to do to help Lebanon move forward,” he cautioned in another tweet. 

The U.S., along with Graham, has been pushing Lebanon to follow through on its commitment to disarm Hezbollah, made as part of the Trump administration’s ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024. The first phase of the deal, which went into effect in November of that year, called for the Lebanese military to remove Hezbollah from the territory south of the Litani River, near Israel’s border, by the end of 2025. The second phase would then focus on Hezbollah’s disarmament north of the Litani. 

The Lebanese government announced it accomplished that goal in early January, though Israel has disputed that claim, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying, “Efforts made toward this end by the Lebanese Government and the Lebanese Armed Forces are an encouraging beginning, but they are far from sufficient, as evidenced by Hezbollah’s efforts to rearm and rebuild its terror infrastructure with Iranian support.”

Graham said while in Israel in late December that the “trend lines in Lebanon” were “optimistic” following months of public statements from several senior Lebanese government officials calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed. 

“If you want peace, deal with the people who do not. Take them out of the game. Get your head out of the sand,” Graham said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. “If you want a peaceful Lebanon, you need to find a way to deal with Hezbollah because they don’t want peace with Israel. They want to destroy Israel. Most people in Lebanon don’t want to destroy Israel.”

Lawmakers and expert witnesses at a House Foreign Affairs Committee subcommittee hearing on Tuesday highlighted the ongoing challenges and delays in the disarming of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, but also argued that there is tremendous opportunity in the country if Hezbollah’s influence can be defeated — including potential moves in the near term toward normalization with Israel.

“Right now, we have the chance to help this government break free of the shackles of Iran’s malign influence. Hezbollah’s influence is vastly diminished thanks in large part to decisive Israeli action. But difficult choices now need to be made to permanently block Hezbollah’s path to power,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), the Middle East subcommittee chair, said in his opening statement.

He said that the Lebanese Armed Forces have made strides in disarming Hezbollah but the ceasefire plan’s implementation “has been haphazard at best,” also emphasizing the ongoing economic difficulties and widespread corruption that continue to plague the country and provide Hezbollah and its Iranian backers opportunities to rebuild.

Lawler also emphasized that significant reforms are needed, particularly in southern Lebanon, to ensure that the same corrupt systems that allowed Hezbollah to flourish do not return. In the long term, Lawler said that he hopes to see Lebanon become a “true partner” in the region and normalize its relationship with Israel.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), the ranking member, said that there is a “historic opportunity” in Lebanon but “[t]hat window of opportunity, however, is narrow. Hezbollah is working hard to rebuild, rearm and to reconstitute itself as a major terrorist organization.”

Sherman accused the Trump administration of a “lack of urgency and a lack of the necessary support” to groups working to counter Hezbollah in the country, particularly following cuts to foreign assistance.

He said that comments by the Trump administration “have often sent the wrong signals, particularly when Special Envoy Tom Barrack downplayed Hezbollah and described it as a political party that also has a — let me quote him exactly — ‘a political party that also has a militant aspect to it,’” Sherman continued.

During the hearing, expert witnesses, all from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned that the disarmament process is not proceeding smoothly or entirely as expected. All three agreed that the U.S. should condition security assistance to Lebanon on progress in disarming Hezbollah, among other steps. And they each said the U.S. should ramp up its sanctions efforts, targeting Hezbollah and malign actors in the Lebanese government.

David Schenker, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute and former Trump administration official, emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) are encountering ongoing obstacles including Hezbollah’s use of human shields, a lack of political will, ongoing Hezbollah penetration of the LAF, ongoing LAF deference to Hezbollah and threats to LAF forces’ safety.

He said the Lebanese government has not deployed as many troops to southern Lebanon to carry out the disarmament mission as it had promised.

Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute and longtime Lebanese journalist, said that the lack of a concrete timeline for disarmament “has produced a de facto freeze,” in which neither the LAF nor Hezbollah are moving forward. She called for outside pressure, including conditions on U.S. aid, to pressure the LAF into continuing with its obligations to disarm Hezbollah.

Dana Stroul, the research director at The Washington Institute and a former Biden administration official, said that defanging Hezbollah requires not only disarming the group but also “addressing the political, social and economic system within which Hezbollah has thrived.” She called for expanded U.S. engagement in the country outside of the security realm.

Stroul, differing from the other witnesses, argued that the U.S. should offer reconstruction assistance — in addition to military aid — to offset the unconditional aid flowing in from Qatar and Turkey and ensure oversight and safeguards. She said that waiting to contribute to reconstruction efforts until after disarmament is complete risks locking the U.S. out of the process and preventing it from enforcing its own conditions.

Schenker argued that the current “division of labor” between the LAF and Israel, which maintains positions inside Lebanon and continues to carry out strikes on Hezbollah outposts, should continue pending further LAF progress. He said that many in the LAF are quietly “very pleased” about the Israeli action, in contrast with their public protests.

In spite of the ongoing issues, the witnesses said that the new Lebanese government is an improvement over previous ones and that there are people within the Lebanese government with whom the U.S. can work and who are making real strides. The witnesses noted that other regional and global developments are also depriving Hezbollah of its key allies.

Schenker and Ghaddar said that, if the Iranian regime were to fall, Hezbollah would be significantly weakened, though Schenker warned that it would not fully disappear due to its various money-generating ventures inside Lebanon and foreign supporters.

The witnesses said that Lebanese normalization with Israel could be achievable.

“Peace between Lebanon and Israel is not separate from this effort, it is what sustains it,” Ghaddar said, adding that such an outcome is “closer than many may assume” but only with a forceful U.S. policy approach. She said that “peace is no longer taboo” and that the “Lebanese street is ready” for such a step. She said that the peace process should begin immediately.

“Peace raises the political cost of re-armament, strengthens state legitimacy, unlocks economic recovery and deprives Hezbollah of its core justification. Without a credible peace horizon, disarmament and economic reform will be temporary,” Ghaddar continued. “With one, they become structural.”

She said that the U.S. should focus on eroding the Lebanese anti-normalization law by offering incentives to not enforce the law, and sanctioning those involved in its enforcement. She also called for continued discussions on economic cooperation between Lebanon and Israel.

Stroul similarly said that a Lebanese government publicly considering normalization with Israel is “not any policy opportunity that, before Oct. 7, we could have imagined,” providing a “tremendous reason for hope,” alongside other improvements in the leadership in Beirut.

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) raised concerns about the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, backed by Turkey and Qatar, in Lebanon.

Schenker said that the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated party in Lebanon has been “making slow but steady progress.” Ghaddar said that Turkey and Qatar “play a very bad role in Lebanon in terms of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood” and that the Muslim Brotherhood branch, which she described as “Lebanese Hamas,” is a “very dangerous phenomenon.”

Ghaddar added that the Muslim Brotherhood has been treating Hezbollah as a “strategic ally” and that they might form an alliance in the upcoming elections.

Lawmakers and experts highlighted those upcoming Lebanese elections as a potential pivot point for anti-Hezbollah efforts. 

Ghaddar warned that, if Hezbollah is able to win all of the Shia seats in the next parliament and the Iranian regime does not fall, the political situation would functionally return to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo.

Stroul said the “U.S. must do more than insist that elections take place on time. Signaling U.S. interest in a parliamentary outcome that demonstrates a break with the pre-Oct. 7 governmental paralysis is critical. The worst case outcome would be a parliamentary makeup that leaves in place Hezbollah-affiliated politicians.”

Ghaddar and Schenker emphasized that the Lebanese diaspora could be a key deciding factor in the upcoming election, but it is unclear if they will be able to vote as required by Lebanese law. The millions of Lebanese citizens living abroad “will have a real impact on whether this government stays or whether we go back to business as usual,” Schenker said.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) highlighted legislation he introduced with Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL) ahead of the hearing to authorize sanctions on any individuals involved in blocking Lebanese citizens abroad from voting in the elections or who are otherwise obstructing the Lebanese elections.

Schenker called for the U.S. to press allies to fully designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and repudiated Barrack’s comments about Hezbollah having political and military elements — a stance mirroring that of some European countries. 

He said the U.S. needs to be clear that the entire group is a terrorist organization if it wants to see its allies agree to such a designation. But he was skeptical that France, in particular, would be willing to proceed with such a step.

Stroul argued the U.S. needs more technical experts and diplomats focused on Lebanon, noting the repeated turnover in U.S. envoys working on the portfolio. She also urged the Trump administration to welcome Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to the White House for a meeting.

The Trump administration labeled three Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations, including chapters in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. 

The move follows an executive order President Donald Trump signed in November, which tasked Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with identifying whether branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt should be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and which should be deemed Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

Those determinations were released on Tuesday: Jordanian and Egyptian branches were placed under the category of Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), with the State Department citing their provision of “material support to Hamas.”

Meanwhile, the organization’s branch in Lebanon received the more stringent label of Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a stronger categorization that makes it a criminal offense to provide material support to the group. The organization’s leader in Lebanon, Muhammad Fawzi Taqqosh, was named an SDGT. 

“These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilization wherever it occurs,” Rubio said in a statement. “The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider that while the organization poses a threat in all three countries, Lebanon’s determination was “more far reaching.”

“In the case of Lebanon, you can see why it’s been singled out, because the Lebanese chapter was directly involved in violence in the recent conflict between Hezbollah and Israel,” said Fitton-Brown. “In the case of the Jordanian and Egyptian chapters, they’re not necessarily a lesser threat, but the State Department evidently didn’t find enough information to justify a finding that they are a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

Fitton-Brown added that this is just the “beginning” of the process, noting that the administration has moved “pretty quickly” and there is potentially “more to follow.” 

“I understand that there is still interest in the [administration] in other chapters,” said Fitton-Brown. “This could be the first of a number of initiatives. We might see an initiative that looks at other specific chapters. One that’s been mentioned is Yemen, another that’s been mentioned is Libya.”

Dr. Charles Small, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy, praised Trump and Rubio’s efforts, stating that the administration has taken an “enormous step to confront the threat the the Muslim Brotherhood poses around the world.”

“The Muslim Brotherhood works from within open and free societies to subvert the values that America and other Western democracies cherish, while advocating for the subjugation of women, the oppression of LGBTQ+ people, and the murder of Jews,” said Small. “We are hopeful that these vital efforts will continue, and ISGAP will keep supporting executive and legislative actions in Washington that aim to dismantle the Brotherhood’s networks and stop its continuing plan to undermine our way of life.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday pledging to designate certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, identifying the organization’s branches in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt as particularly problematic. 

“Its chapters in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens and United States interests,” according to the executive order. 

As evidence, the White House cited the participation of the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood in the Oct. 7 terror attacks for Israel; the Jordanian chapter’s record of providing material support to Hamas; and the calls by a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to for violent attacks against U.S. partners. 

The new policy gives the secretary of state and the secretary of the Treasury 30 days to identify which branches should be designated “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” and which should be deemed “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” another formal designation by the U.S. government that comes with less severe consequences than the FTO designation. 

According to the executive order, it is now official U.S. policy “to cooperate with its regional partners to eliminate the capabilities and operations of Muslim Brotherhood chapters designated as foreign terrorist organizations” and to “deprive those chapters of resources, and thereby end any threat such chapters pose to United States nationals or the national security of the United States.” 

The executive order comes a week after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued an order designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terror group, though the move is largely symbolic at the state level. 

Some Republicans have been pushing the White House to target the Muslim Brotherhood for months, though the effort stalled until a few weeks ago.  

The Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist group, gained prominence in 2012, when Mohamed Morsi — who was affiliated with the movement — became Egypt’s president, following a revolution that ousted Egypt’s longtime leader Hosni Mubarak. Morsi was then removed from office in a coup d’etat in 2013.  

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amid indications that Hezbollah is rearming itself, Israel assassinated a top official of the Lebanese terrorist group in an airstrike on Sunday in Beirut. The strike, which killed Haytham Ali Tabatabai, the group’s chief of staff, was the first such attack in the Lebanese capital in five months and part of a recent escalation in Israeli strikes to blunt Hezbollah’s rebuilding.

Tabatabai served as Hezbollah’s chief of staff for the last year, when a ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and Lebanon, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Before that, the army said, Tabatabai oversaw Hezbollah’s combat operations against Israel and had held a series of senior positions since he joined the group in the 1980s, including commander of the Radwan Force unit and head of Hezbollah’s operations in Syria. 

“Tabatabai is a mass murderer,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday evening. 

“His hands are soaked in the blood of many Israelis and Americans, and it is not for nothing that the U.S. put a bounty of five million dollars on his head,” Netanyahu said, in reference to a 2016 decision designating Tabatabai as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

“Tabatabai served as a senior commander in the Radwan Force. This is the force that prepared to conquer the Galilee and slaughter many of our citizens,” Netanyahu added. “Recently, he led Hezbollah’s renewed efforts to rearm, this is of course after the heavy blows Hezbollah suffered in the ‘Pager Operation,’ in the damage to its missile stockpiles, and of course, in the elimination of [Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan] Nasrallah,” the prime minister said, stressing that Israel would not allow the group to rebuild and calling on the Lebanese government to “fulfill its commitment to disarm Hezbollah.”

Israel reportedly did not notify the U.S. in advance of the strike.

The strike killed five people and wounded 25 others, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strike and called on the international community to intervene “to stop the attacks on Lebanon and its people.”

The Israeli army said in its statement that it “will act against efforts to rebuild and rearm the Hezbollah terrorist organization and will operate to remove any threat posed to Israeli civilians,” adding that it “remains committed to the understandings reached between the State of Israel and Lebanon.”

“Hezbollah’s leadership is studying the matter of response and will take the appropriate decision,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told reporters, according to the Associated Press.

Israeli intelligence officials told Haaretz they believe that Hezbollah may retaliate with attacks on Jewish, Israeli or Israeli-linked targets in foreign countries, rather than directly attacking Israel.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) championed a U.S. defense agreement with Lebanon during a bipartisan congressional delegation to Beirut on Tuesday, saying it would be the “biggest change in the history of Lebanon.”

Speaking at a press conference alongside Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Graham asked, “How many nations have a defense agreement with the United States? Very few. … The number of nations that America is willing to go to war for is very few. Why do I mention Lebanon being in that group? You have one thing going for you that is very valuable to me: religious diversity.”

“Christianity is under siege in the Mideast. Christians are being slaughtered and run out of all over, all over the region, except here. And so what I am going to tell my colleagues is, ‘Why don’t we invest in defending religious diversity in the Mideast? Why don’t we have a relationship with Lebanon where we would actually defend what you’re doing?’” he continued. 

“I think it’s in America’s interest to defend religious diversity, whether you’re Druze or Alawite or a Christian or whatever. The idea that America may one day have a defense agreement with Lebanon changes Lebanon unlike any single thing I could think of,” Graham said.

During their visit, the delegation, joined by U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, diplomat Morgan Ortagus and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson, met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and head of the Lebanese Armed Forces Gen. Rodolph Haykal.

During the press conference, the lawmakers conveyed their encouragement over the progress that Lebanon has made in military, financial and democratic reforms and their hope that the government would be able to execute the changes fully. 

“We all see Lebanon is at a point of change. We’re here to tell you that we’re buying into that change, that we support what you’re trying to do. That if you do make an effort to disarm Hezbollah, we’ll be there trying to help. We’ll try to help your military, we’ll try to help your economy. We think that’s the right thing for you to do, and it benefits the entire region,” Graham said.

“If you’re able to pull this off, Saudi Arabia will look at you differently. If you’re able to pull it off, Israel will look at you differently. If you’re able to pull this off, there’ll be a groundswell of support in Washington to help your economy and to help your military,” he continued.

“Congress is looking at Lebanon differently because you’re behaving differently. If you continue to go down this road, I think you have a wonderful opportunity to secure your nation, economically, militarily, like anything I’ve seen since I’ve been coming to the region with [the late Sen.] John McCain (R-AZ). It all depends on what happens with the Hezbollah file and the Palestinian file.”

Wilson compared recent changes in Lebanon and in Syria with the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. “There’s such an opportunity for stability, security, for economic prosperity, for everyone,” he said.

Graham also emphasized the potential for improved relations between Israel and Lebanon if Hezbollah was contained. “If I were the Israeli prime minister, I would be looking at Lebanon differently after Hezbollah was disarmed by the Lebanese people,” he said.

Pressed by reporters on what steps Israel is taking to disarm Hezbollah and de-escalate conflict, Graham answered, “Why do you need Israel to tell you to disarm Hezbollah? That’s not Israel’s decision. That’s yours. Whether [the IDF] withdraw[s from southern Lebanon] or not, it depends on what you do. So don’t tell me anymore, ‘We’re not going to disarm Hezbollah until Israel does something.’ If that’s the model, you’re going to fail.” 

“The reason you disarm Hezbollah is because it’s best for you. This country is going backward, not forward, if you don’t follow through with disarming the Palestinians and Hezbollah and making the Lebanese army the central repository of arms for the nation. If you don’t do that, you’re going nowhere,” the South Carolina senator said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement yesterday that he “acknowledges the significant step taken by the Lebanese Government” and that “in light of this important development, Israel stands ready to support Lebanon in its efforts to disarm Hezbollah and to work together towards a more secure and stable future for both nations.”

Netanyahu pledged that if the Lebanese Armed Forces “take the necessary steps to implement the disarmament of Hezbollah, Israel will engage in reciprocal measures.”

Shaheen and Graham, both of whom serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also spoke about their support for supplying U.S. funding for the LAF and Lebanon’s financial recovery.

Shaheen called the steps Lebanon’s government has pledged to make in military and banking reforms “critical” and said the lawmakers will “continue to press for support, through legislation and through the appropriations process, support for the avenue that Lebanon has chosen for your future.”

Michel Issa, the Lebanese-American businessman nominated by the Trump administration to serve as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, said Tuesday that the Lebanese government and armed forces must act swiftly and decisively to disarm Hezbollah and remove its influence across Lebanese society.

Issa argued at his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing that the war between Israel and Hezbollah, “while devastating, has opened a narrow but meaningful window for progress,” in combination with the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire deal, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and recent blows to Iran’s military and nuclear program. 

He praised the new Lebanese government as a “promising development,” saying it has made progress in combating Hezbollah’s influence.

“The Iran-Israel escalation is a reminder of how delicate an opportunity this is that could be squandered if Iran drags Lebanon back down to the path of conflict,” Issa continued. “The government has made clear it will not tolerate any violation of the cessation of hostility, and since implementation, they have begun to curb Hezbollah’s influence. But more must be done. Urgently. The full disarmament of Hezbollah is not optional. It is essential. The time to act is now.”

Finishing that job and rooting out Hezbollah’s influence across Lebanon will be difficult and take time, he added, given its decades of influence and domination across Lebanese society.

“Hezbollah needs to go. Hezbollah needs to be disarmed to bring some kind of hope to Lebanon,” he said. As long as supply lines from Iran remain cut and with continued support from the United States and other partners, he continued, he believes that over time Hezbollah’s influence can be minimized and the government can secure its hold on power.

Issa said that it’s critical that the Lebanese government maintain full control of rebuilding efforts in southern Lebanon, and that it cannot allow Hezbollah to “hijack” that work as it has in the past. He added that the country must work to ensure governance reform and financial stability, accountability and growth.

He also argued that the U.S. should continue to push for a final settlement regarding the borders between Israel and Lebanon and ultimately normalize relations between the two countries.

Issa spoke highly of the Lebanese Armed Forces, saying that they will be critical to efforts to combat Hezbollah and have been a partner to the United States, which the LAF should continue to support and cooperate with. He said that the LAF is one of the few institutions that enjoys widespread trust and support within Lebanon.

“They are doing a great role in creating stability that is very well needed in Lebanon,” Issa said. “I believe they are ready to do whatever they need to do, to take over and to become the sole military power for the Lebanese government.”

Asked about whether the mandate for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, should be extended, Issa did not offer a definitive answer, saying that its role is changing with the LAF stepping up its role in monitoring the border with Israel and ensuring that Hezbollah does not continue to threaten the Jewish state.

Issa, who was born in Beirut, said that he had renounced his Lebanese citizenship in connection with his nomination, to show his commitment to the American people and the U.S.’ interests.

Duke Buchan, an investment banker who served as U.S. ambassador to Spain in Trump’s first term and is now nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Morocco, testified alongside Issa.

Buchan said repeatedly that he would work to support the Abraham Accords, both to expand the relationship between Israel and Morocco and to urge Morocco to encourage other countries to normalize relations with Israel.

He said it would be one of his “highest priorities” to work to reestablish the Negev Forum dialogue among Israel and its Arab allies, and to convince Morocco to “step up even more.”

Buchan said he supports U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony claimed by both Morocco and the indigenous Sahrawi people, a significant contingent of whom are refugees living in Algeria. The U.S. agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the territory when the country joined the Abraham Accords in 2020. 

“Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio reiterated that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” Buchan said. “If confirmed, I will facilitate progress towards this goal.”

But pressed later in the hearing on bipartisan concerns about the U.S.’ decision to recognize Moroccan sovereignty, Buchan said he was not familiar with those concerns and that he would defer to the president and secretary of state to set policy.

Following a visit to the Middle East, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said he’s very “optimistic” about the future of Lebanon under its new government, describing the country’s leaders as serious about centralizing power and demilitarizing Hezbollah.

Lankford and Sen. Angus King (I-ME) traveled last week to Baghdad and Erbil in Iraq, Beirut  and Amman, Jordan. Lankford continued on to Jerusalem while the Maine senator went on to Turkey. 

Lankford, in an interview with Jewish Insider in his Senate office on Thursday, said that he also heard from Iraqi partners that Tehran is not budging on its commitment to uranium enrichment and that regional leaders are supportive of sanctions relief for Syria.

Lankford pointed to reforms in banking rules to help allow for international investment and concerted action by the Lebanese government and Lebanese Armed Forces against Hezbollah as reasons for optimism.

“The Lebanese Armed Forces and the president were very clear: ‘We will be the defender of Lebanon. There’s not two armies, there’s one army,’” Lankford said. “They are working to demilitarize Hezbollah and to be able to make sure that they are the one army … I think there’s real progress and real opportunity.”

He said the LAF has undertaken hundreds of operations to move into and take over Hezbollah strongholds — which he said had been confirmed by U.S. military leadership — and Lebanese leaders were clear that they plan to continue to advance, seize weapons in Palestinian refugee areas and ultimately move into the Beqaa Valley, where many Hezbollah fighters have fled. 

“[Lebanese leaders] don’t want to be at war with Israel and they don’t want to have two militaries in their country,” Lankford emphasized. “They want to be Lebanon and have peaceful relationships with their neighbors.”

At the same time, he said that the prospect of normalization between Lebanon and Israel floated by some Trump administration officials appears further off. He said the issue came up in his discussions, but that Israel’s military presence inside Lebanon is a “sticking point” for Lebanon’s leadership.

“The Lebanese leadership is saying, for Israel, ‘We understand that you’re wanting to be able to have some leverage here to be able to get us to do our work. We are doing our work. This is our country, you need to back across the Blue Line,’” Lankford said, referring to the border between the Golan Heights and Lebanon. “What we all understand is that boundary, and they’re working to be able to solidify that. And I believe they’re very close.”

He said that on both the Israeli and Lebanese sides, officials volunteered their “overwhelming support” for Morgan Ortagus, the Trump administration’s deputy Middle East envoy, who sources said will depart her post soon. Lankford said that regional leaders viewed Ortagus as an “honest broker, someone who is legitimately working to try to get to a resolution in the area.”

He said that discussions about Iran’s nuclear program were a primary focus for many in the region, adding that he “heard loud and clear” from leaders in Iraq who have been in close contact with Tehran that Iran is not budging on its insistence on maintaining enrichment capacity.

“[Leaders in Iraq] said, ‘All they want is peaceful [enrichment] purposes and [Iran is] hopeful that they’re going to keep that and they’re hopeful for the negotiations,’” Lankford said. “And I just said, ‘I’m not in the negotiations but I could tell you, there’s not an interest in having a uranium enrichment program in Iran at all.’”

Asked about recent reports that the U.S. has put forward proposals that would allow Iran to continue enriching, either in an interim capacity or as part of a regional consortium, Lankford said that Iran’s centrifuges cannot continue operating.

He also said, in response to comments by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Iranian proxy terrorism and ballistic missile development are not part of the ongoing talks, that the proxies and missiles are central to the U.S.’ issues with Iran, and “it all needs to be addressed.”

Lankford added that Iran cannot be allowed to continue developing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon while it continues to enrich uranium.

“I can remember saying [in 2015] that the problem with JCPOA is that they can continue to do their weapons development towards a weapon that can deliver a nuclear weapon, while they have time to be able to [do] more study,” Lankford said. “So it provides them the two things they need, money and time, and they don’t have to slow down their weapons development.”

Lankford said that, throughout the region, he heard support for sanctions relief for the new leadership in Syria to allow the fledgling government a chance to coalesce.

“There’s also cautious skepticism about the new leadership there, to say they need to have a chance, but they need to pull together a government that respects the rights of the minority,” Lankford said. “Everybody was focused in on, how do you get a unified Syria so it’s not split up? With so much diversity in Syria, how do you actually make that work?”

He said he hadn’t discussed the prospect of sanctions relief directly with Israeli leaders, but said that Israeli leaders are very wary of Turkish influence in Syria, and of Ankara effectively attempting to annex the country.

“That’s a real threat if the Turks decide they’re just going to keep moving south and dominate that, the Israelis are not comfortable with that at all,” Lankford said. “Syria needs to be Syria, and not Turkey South, and the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] was very, very clear about that.”

He said that the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Nechirvan Barzani, said he’s encouraging Syrian Kurds to focus their attention on the new Syrian government in Damascus and on establishing themselves as “part of the new Syria, not a separate entity … and that’s not going to happen if they just stay to the east and don’t actually go engage with the new government.”

Lankford said Israeli leaders were “skeptical” that a ceasefire and hostage-release deal with Hamas, as pushed by the Trump administration, is achievable, and said Israeli leaders told him they plan to continue military operations until Hamas agrees to release the hostages, though he said all parties involved want to see a ceasefire and hostage release.

“[Hamas] could turn over the hostages at any moment and they’ve chosen not to do that, and so we’re going to go get our hostages,” he said, characterizing Israeli leaders’ position on the issue, adding that Hamas cannot remain in power.

He said that Israel is also focused on eliminating remaining Hamas fighters and weapons and said that Israel still has “a long way to go in the tunnels,” but is working to create “safe areas for people to live free of Hamas” and receive food aid.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the new U.S. and Israeli-backed aid delivery mechanism in Gaza, began operations while Lankford was in Israel, and he said that it was achieving its desired results in getting food to Palestinians free of Hamas control. 

Morgan Ortagus, a key member of Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s team, is departing his office, Jewish Insider has learned. 

Ortagus, the deputy special envoy, has been removed from her portfolio in the special envoy’s office, two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to JI. Ortagus had been overseeing the Trump administration’s Lebanon policy and had wanted to take over the Syria file, but was unsuccessful in doing so. 

Israel’s Channel 14 reported over the weekend that Ortagus was expected to leave her position.

Ortagus, who supported Trump’s 2024 bid and campaigned for him, did not respond to JI’s request for comment on the move or if she plans to continue serving in the administration in another capacity. 

The White House did not respond to JI’s request for comment on Ortagus’ future in the administration. 

President Donald Trump appointed Ortagus as Witkoff’s deputy in January, which he announced in an unusual statement expressing reticence about her appointment.

“Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” Trump said in the statement, referencing Ortagus’ tenure as spokesperson for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “These things usually don’t work out, but she has strong Republican support, and I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for them. Let’s see what happens.” 

Ortagus’ departure comes less than two weeks after Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw a widespread purge of officials at the NSC, including those overseeing the Middle East and Israel and Iran portfolios. This followed Trump’s decision to pull former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, another Iran hawk in the administration, from his role and instead nominate him to be his ambassador to the United Nations.

The staffing developments inside the administration are taking place against the backdrop of an effort by Witkoff and Trump to move ahead with nuclear talks with Iran and a continued push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Ortagus was leaving the National Security Council. Ortagus was not a member of the NSC.

With the Middle East in flux from Gaza to Lebanon, Syria and Iran, any week in the last 600 days would have been a busy one in Jerusalem. Still, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) arrived in Israel on Monday at a particularly significant moment, with nuclear talks with Iran reaching a critical juncture and the U.S. and Israel moving forward with a plan to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Israel is one stop in McCormick’s first trip abroad after becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism earlier this year. 

“There are so many issues that will be coming before the Senate … so it felt like it was appropriate to come and get the truth on the ground,” McCormick said in an interview with Jewish Insider in Jerusalem on Tuesday. “We wanted to come to Israel as a show of solidarity. It’s a very tough time now, in the aftermath of [Israeli Embassy staffers] Yaron [Lischinsky] and Sarah [Milgrim] killed in Washington, and all the polarization and the challenges with Gaza and Iran.”

In between a visit to the Western Wall and minutes before his meeting with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the group implementing the American-Israeli Gaza aid plan, which has come under fire from international aid groups on the ground, McCormick spoke with JI about the significant issues on his agenda. Tech investor Liran Tancman, one of the Israelis involved in arranging the aid distribution program, took part in the meeting with McCormick and GHF as well. 

The GHF began distributing aid on Monday, though it had to pause at one point on Tuesday, reportedly due to overcrowding. Additionally, Hamas members reportedly threatened Gazans who cooperated with the American-led effort.

“I certainly recognize … how complex a problem this is,” McCormick said. “On one hand, you want to give the humanitarian assistance that is needed to make sure innocents are able to have the support they need. But it’s also a tool that’s been hijacked by Hamas as a source of revenue, as a source of leverage and control. So, how do you balance?”

The senator noted positively that hundreds of trucks had already entered Gaza, and expressed hope that the GHF could distribute aid to families in need.

McCormick also pointed out that “this whole thing could end overnight if [Hamas] release[s] the hostages.”

His message for countries such as the U.K., France and others that have threatened action against Israel if it does not allow the U.N. to distribute aid is “to actually look at the complexity of the problem and the good faith efforts that are being taken to address it. I think that will hopefully be confidence-building for them.”

McCormick was also in Israel at a time in which the Trump administration appears increasingly concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not on board with the White House’s efforts to reach a diplomatic deal with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program. Israel is reportedly preparing contingency plans to strike Iran. 

Tensions between Washington and Jerusalem led Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to tell Fox News on Monday that she was dispatched to Israel to tell Netanyahu to allow negotiations to run their course.

The day after meeting with Netanyahu, McCormick said, “Nobody shared any battle plans with me. Obviously, the administration is in close contact with the Israeli government … I think, ultimately, the defining point is Iran can’t have a nuclear program and can’t be on the path to having a nuclear program. That’s a defining goal.”

“I think there is an opportunity because I think Iran is at a weak moment due in part to incredible actions that Israel has taken against the terrorist proxies supported by Iran,” he added. “The political pressure on Iran is at an all-time high, and the capability of the Iranians is at an all-time low. So you’ve got a moment of opportunity, and I’m hoping that forces will come together to make the most of it.”

McCormick argued that Trump and Netanyahu’s remarks on Iran’s nuclear program are consistent with one another.

“I go to what President Trump said, which is full dismantlement of the nuclear program and no enrichment, those are his two red lines, and I listen to what Netanyahu said yesterday, which is, ‘I don’t trust them, but we need full dismantlement of the nuclear program and no enrichment,’” he said.

McCormick noted that former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader, said the same thing as Netanyahu about Iran in their meeting. 

“If the deal would come together in line with what President Trump has said, that would be something that would be welcome,” McCormick added. “It would be a huge step forward for the region and a huge step forward for the world.” 

Asked if Republicans in the Senate would accept a deal that fell short of those lines, McCormick first said that while he is not privy to the details of the current negotiations with Iran, “I don’t necessarily believe any of what I read [in the media]. I’ll believe it when I hear the president … I’m not going to talk about something that doesn’t exist yet.” 

The senator pointed to a letter signed by nearly all Senate Republicans urging the president to reject any deal that does not include the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.

“I’ve been with the president when he’s talked about this, and I’ve heard him talk about dismantling [the Iranian nuclear program] … That’s the position that I think he’s taken and that I would take,” he stated.

When one negotiates with Iran, McCormick said, the first consideration must be to “take Iran at its word when it says it wants to destroy Israel and the United States,” and the second is that “there’s a history of untrustworthiness.”

“If you start with those two premises, then you have to get an outcome where the likelihood of a reconstitution of a nuclear Iran program is not something that is in the cards,” he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress last week that the current negotiations with Iran are only about its nuclear program and not its terror proxies or ballistic missile program, though related sanctions remain in place.

However, McCormick said, “that doesn’t mean U.S. policy is only going to deal with [the nuclear program], and my basic view is Iran has been a bad actor and any … reducing sanctions should also require the complete termination of any support for terrorist proxies.”

Asked if that doesn’t contradict an offer to lift sanctions in exchange for a nuclear-only deal, McCormick said, “I don’t know what the deal is, but any treaty would ultimately come before the Senate and those are the kinds of questions I’ve asked.”

McCormick expressed confidence that the Trump administration would not try to circumvent the Senate, saying that “for any agreement to last, it needs to come through the Senate.”

The senator rejected the framing that there are two dueling foreign policy camps in the Trump administration, the more traditional Republicans and the “restrainers,” saying that Trump has been “very consistent” and that he has “a realpolitik view of supporting American interests.”

“I’ve seen lots of administrations … There are always conflicting views. That’s how good policies are made. You have a policy process where people get to argue and the president gets to decide,” he said.

Trump, McCormick said, has “made it very clear that the Israelis are our closest ally in the Middle East. There is no one that’s done more to support Israel … He’s been very clear on his stance on antisemitism. So listen, these are complex problems … but I think the administration stance has been a very clear one, and the president keeps coming back to peace through strength, which I think is one of the defining pieces of this foreign policy.”

As for the relationship between the U.S. and Qatar, which hosts Hamas leaders in its capital and represents Hamas’ interests in hostage and ceasefire negotiations with Israel, McCormick said: “From a realpolitik perspective, Qatar is an important part of bringing together the possibilities of a peace deal, but I think any funding that’s supporting terrorist organizations or any historical support should be an important consideration in the relationship.”

The senator posited that “our relationship with Qatar is moving in the right direction, but ultimately it depends on changing behavior where it’s not supporting groups that aren’t in line with U.S. objectives or allies of the United States.”

When it comes to concerns that Qatar is spending large sums of money to try to gain favor and influence the U.S., McCormick drew a distinction between the $400 million plane Qatar is planning to gift Trump to be used as Air Force One and then donated to his library, and Qatar’s large contributions to American universities.

McCormick has “concerns about the plane from a security perspective and an intel perspective. Obviously, we want to make sure that … there’s no national security risk associated with it.”

However, he called the donation of the plane “a sort of transaction between the U.S. government in many countries that happens in all sorts of different forms … It’ll go through whatever ethics review.”

McCormick said that funding for universities, however, is a major concern, not only from Qatar but from China, “particularly if there are motivations tied to it.”

“No one has been a stronger voice on antisemitism on campus than me,” he said. “Any foreign money that can be tied to supporting groups that are leading this antisemitism, I’m very opposed to. I think President Trump cracking down on these universities for their antisemitism, looking at the sources of funding, making federal funding contingent on dealing with antisemitism and making sure universities are doing their role is necessary.”