DUBAI/BEIRUT/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he is seeking direct talks with Beirut, a day after the worst bombardment of the war killed more than 250 people in Lebanon and placed Donald Trump’s US-Iran ceasefire in jeopardy.
Netanyahu, whose government rebuffed a historic offer for direct talks with Lebanon last month, said in a statement that he had given instructions to start peace talks as soon as possible, which would also include disarming Iran-aligned militant group Hezbollah.
“In light of Lebanon’s repeated requests to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the cabinet yesterday to start direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,” he said. “The negotiations will focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon.”
Trump announced a ceasefire in the six-week-old Iran conflict late on Tuesday, just hours before a deadline after which he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilisation.
In Pakistan, authorities were preparing for the first round of US-Iran talks, locking down the capital Islamabad.
But there was no sign Iran was lifting its near-total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused the worst disruption to global energy supplies in history, with Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon cited as a key sticking point.
In the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, just a single oil products tanker and five dry bulk carriers sailed through a strait that typically accommodated 140 ships a day before the war, accounting for around a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
An hour before Netanyahu’s statement, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said he was working on a diplomatic track on this matter that was starting to be seen “positively” by international actors.
A senior Lebanese official told Reuters that Lebanon had spent the last day pushing for a temporary ceasefire to allow for broader talks with Israel, describing the effort as a “separate track but the same model” as the US-Iran truce.
The official said no date or location had been set yet but that Lebanon needed the US as a mediator and guarantor of any agreement.
