UNSC delegation meets Lebanon’s Aoun, tours south amid Israeli escalation

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has met with a visiting United Nations Security Council (UNSC) delegation to discuss escalating tensions with Israel and efforts to disarm Hezbollah, a day after a wave of Israeli raids rocked the south of the country, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).

Speaking with the UNSC team on Friday, Aoun urged them to pressure Israel to respect a November 2024 ceasefire it has violated on a near-daily basis and to withdraw from areas it continues to occupy in southern Lebanon.

“We look forward to pressure from your side,” said Aoun, in comments carried by the NNA.

Aoun earlier said the UN delegation, which also met with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, would tour southern Lebanon to check “the situation on the ground”. The trip would help the delegation “see the real picture of what is happening there”, as the army works to implement a plan to dismantle Hezbollah’s weapons, said Aoun.

The UN visit comes amid tentative signs of potential deeper engagement between Lebanon and Israel that have angered Hezbollah.

On Wednesday, civilian representatives from the two states held their first direct talks in decades, in a move Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem slammed as a “free concession” to Israel, which Lebanon is technically still at war with.

In comments carried by the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar newspaper, Qassem said the civilian-led talks go against the policy of the Lebanese government, whose top priority should be ensuring state sovereignty.

Describing Israel as “expansionist”, Qassem said the country has not adhered to last year’s ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah and has carried out “constant” attacks.

“This aggression is not due to Hezbollah’s weapons but rather aims to gradually occupy Lebanon and establish a ‘Greater Israel’ through Lebanon,” Qassem said, adding that the US has “no business interfering” with internal Lebanese issues, including the country’s defence strategy or efforts to disarm Hezbollah.

Salam, for his part, said the talks with Israel – held during a meeting of the military committee monitoring their ceasefire – were “positive” but downplayed their significance, saying they were not eyeing normalisation and focused only on implementing the 2024 truce.

‘Negotiations under fire’?

Despite the apparent diplomatic opening, Israel’s military followed up the Lebanon talks with another wave of attacks in southern Lebanon. On Thursday, it struck four southern Lebanese villages – its latest of hundreds of attacks, despite the 2024 truce, claiming to target Hezbollah infrastructure, but that have killed dozens of civilians and destroyed residential buildings and critical infrastructure.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Beirut, Zeina Khodr, said the strikes sent a message that “negotiations will be held under fire, until Hezbollah is fully disarmed”.

While Lebanon’s government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, the group has flatly rejected the idea as long as Israel continues to bombard and occupy Lebanon.

Qassem said in recent days that the armed group has the right to respond to Israel’s assassination of its top military chief in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last month.

Qassem called the killing of Haytham Ali Tabatabai “a blatant aggression and a heinous crime”, adding that Hezbollah has “the right to respond, and we will determine the timing for that”.

‘Language of negotiation’

Aoun’s Information Minister Paul Morcos said the government views negotiations with Israel, set to restart on December 19, as the only way forward. “There is no other option but negotiation. This is the reality, and this is what history has taught us about wars,” Aoun, a former chief of the Lebanese army, said at a cabinet meeting, according to Morcos.

Aoun stressed “the need for the language of negotiation – not the language of war – to prevail”, and that there would be no concession over Lebanon’s sovereignty, added Morcos.

The November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon called for both states to halt hostilities, with Lebanon responsible for preventing armed groups from attacking Israel and Israel committed to ending offensive military actions.

However, Israeli forces continue to occupy at least five positions inside Lebanese territory and have not withdrawn despite the agreement’s terms. They have also conducted near-daily attacks across Lebanon that have killed more than 300 people, including at least 127 civilians, according to the UN.

Israel claims its operations are targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to prevent the armed group from rebuilding its military capabilities and reemerging as a force in the country.