Lebanon and Israel hold talks in Rome amid renewed West Asia fighting
Lebanon and Israel are holding new negotiations under U.S. auspices in Rome on Tuesday (July 14, 2026), against the backdrop of a regional escalation between
Lebanon and Israel are holding new negotiations under U.S. auspices in Rome on Tuesday (July 14, 2026), against the backdrop of a regional escalation between Washington and Tehran. The two countries, officially at war for decades, reached a framework agreement on June 26, after five rounds of negotiations in Washington, aimed at ending the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah and paving the way for peace. Also Read: West Asia conflict updates on July 14, 2026 But Hezbollah rejects the agreement, which calls for the group’s disarmament and whose implementation is set to begin with Israeli withdrawal from two “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese presidency announced on Monday (July 13, 2026) that its delegation to Rome had been instructed “to demand the immediate start of Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the two pilot zones before any further discussion”. According to a Lebanese diplomatic source familiar with the content of the talks, “the Lebanese army is ready to gradually take control of the localities from which the Israeli army would withdraw”.
“Israel is willing to withdraw gradually,” analyst Orna Mizrahi of the Institute for Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv told AFP’s Jerusalem bureau, but on the condition “that there will be no presence of Hezbollah in the areas that Israel is withdrawing from”. She added that Israel also seeks to ensure “that the Lebanese army will have the ability... to keep it as a neutralised zone and a neutralised place that Hezbollah cannot come in again.” A U.S. military delegation began discussions with the Lebanese army in Beirut on Saturday (July 11, 2026) on the process for Israeli withdrawal from one of these “pilot zones”. Limited prospects The framework agreement was concluded after a fragile ceasefire came into effect in the war between Hezbollah and Israel. The Israeli army has nonetheless continued limited strikes in the south and has been carrying out demolitions in villages it occupies, according to official Lebanese media. Israel’s strikes and ground invasion have killed more than 4,300 people since the war started in early March, according to Lebanese authorities.
“The chances of a breakthrough in Rome are quite limited,” Karim Bitar, a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, told AFP. “What we might see instead is a kind of opportunity to show that the process is still in place... that there are negotiations continuing despite the opposition and the obstacles that are beginning to emerge,” he continued. Tehran had demanded a ceasefire in Lebanon in order to conclude a memorandum of understanding with Washington on June 17. But the region has seen a renewed escalation in recent days, with the U.S. carrying out a third consecutive night of strikes against Iran ahead of the planned reimposition on Tuesday (July 14, 2026) of its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Iran wants to establish a link between negotiations over the regional war and Lebanon, “but we have the wish to disconnect it,” the INSS’s Ms. Mizrahi said. She added that Tehran’s priorities today are the Strait of Hormuz and the nuclear file.
The BriefWire