A message lighting up Times Square , New York City center: last weekend “Neighboring nations deserve better than what stands between them”.
The US embassy in Lebanon on Thursday urged a meeting between Lebanese and Israeli leaders as the health ministry said Israeli strikes on the country’s south killed at least 17 people despite an ongoing ceasefire.
Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to Washington met twice this month in Washington — the first such meetings in decades — after Iran-backed Hezbollah group drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2, sparking heavy Israeli strikes and a ground invasion.
After the first talks, US President Donald Trump announced a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon that began on April 17, and a three-week extension after the second round.
US President Donald Trump (C) plans to host a meeting between Lebanese President Aoun (R) and Israeli PM Netanyahu (L) at the White House on May
Trump has said he hopes to host Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “over the next couple of weeks” as the two countries prepare for direct negotiations.
The planned negotiations have caused a rift in Lebanon, with Hezbollah rejecting direct negotiations as well as Lebanon’s previous commitment to disarm it.
“Lebanon stands at a crossroads. Its people have a historic opportunity to reclaim their country and shape their future as a truly sovereign, independent nation,” the embassy said, adding that “the time for hesitation is over”.
A direct meeting between Aoun and Netanyahu, “facilitated by President Trump, would give Lebanon the chance to secure concrete guarantees on full sovereignty, territorial integrity, secure borders, humanitarian and reconstruction support, and the complete restoration of Lebanese state authority over every inch of its territory — guaranteed by the United States,” the statement added.
‘Ceasefire Violations’ –
On Wednesday, Aoun said Israel “must first fully implement the ceasefire in order to move on to negotiations… Israeli attacks cannot continue as they are.”
“We are now waiting for the United States to set a date to begin direct negotiations” with Israel, he said.
Israel has kept up deadly strikes on Lebanon despite the truce, and its soldiers are operating inside a “Yellow Line” running some 10 kilometres (six miles) deep inside Lebanon along the border.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes in the south killed 17 people on Thursday, including five women and two children, while the army said another strike killed one of its soldiers.
Israel’s army also said one of its soldiers had been killed in south Lebanon.
Aoun on Thursday blasted “continuing violations” in the country’s south.
Speaking to a delegation from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, he said these were occurring “despite the ceasefire, as do demolitions of homes and places of worship, while the number of killed and wounded rises”.
“Pressure must be exerted on Israel to ensure it respects international laws and conventions and ceases targeting civilians, paramedics, civil defense, and humanitarian health and relief organizations,” Aoun said, on a day when three civil defence personnel killed by Israel were buried.
Ghost of the May 17 Agreement of 1983 haunting the new negotiations
As Lebanon prepares to resume direct discussions with Israel, the ghost of the May 17 Agreement of 1983 – a deal that was signed but never implemented – is haunting the new round of negotiations. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam are facing a smear campaign from Hezbollah, which has already rejected any compromise and issued thinly veiled threats against the country’s leadership.
Aoun who is banking on the talks to secure an Israeli army withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a final demarcation of the shared border, was even the target of an implicit death threat issued by officials from the Iranian-backed proxy.
The threat was taken seriously in Beirut given the pro-Iranian movement’s track record, with several of its members convicted by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) over the 2005 assassination of several Lebanese leaders
Senior Hezbollah official Nawaf Moussaoui warned in an interview with the party’s Al-Manar television channel last Saturday that if the Lebanese president “wants to take decisions unilaterally, he is no more important than Anwar al-Sadat” – a reference to the Egyptian president who was assassinated three years after signing a peace deal with Israel at Camp David. Sadat was assassinated on October 6, 1981, by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
AFP/ News Agencies/YL
