Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will continue its military campaign in Lebanon with “full force” even as it moves toward direct peace talks with Beirut.
The announcement confirmed a dual-track strategy unfolding amid pressure from President Donald Trump to translate battlefield gains into diplomacy.
“There is no ceasefire in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said in a statement addressed to residents of northern Israel, vowing that operations against Hezbollah will continue until security is restored.
The stance was echoed in reporting by The Wall Street Journal, which said Netanyahu has made clear Israel will press ahead with its Lebanon operation even as negotiations begin, effectively pursuing diplomacy alongside ongoing military action.
At the same time, Netanyahu said he has instructed his cabinet to open direct negotiations with the Lebanese government as soon as possible, citing what he described as repeated requests from Beirut.
He said the talks would focus on disarming Hezbollah and securing what he called a “historic, sustainable peace agreement” between Israel and Lebanon.
The push toward talks comes as Trump has been encouraging Netanyahu to explore a diplomatic opening, according to U.S. and regional reporting.
He urged Israeli leadership to test whether recent operations against Iran and its regional allies can be leveraged into a broader realignment.
Trump has made expanding normalization agreements a central objective and has promoted further deals building on the Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Arab states.
His outreach has included interest in whether momentum could extend to Lebanon, long viewed as a more complex case due to Hezbollah’s entrenched military and political role.
At the same time, U.S. officials have cautioned that continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon could complicate wider diplomatic efforts tied to tensions with Iran, even as Washington has not called for a halt to Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah.
Netanyahu has framed the moment as a strategic inflection point, arguing that Israeli operations have weakened Iran and shifted the regional balance of power, potentially opening the door to new agreements with countries that previously had no formal ties with Israel.
Significant obstacles remain. The Lebanese government has historically said it cannot unilaterally disarm Hezbollah, while the group itself has rejected negotiations with Israel under continued military pressure.
The result is a high-stakes balancing act: Israel intensifying its campaign to degrade Hezbollah while simultaneously opening a diplomatic track encouraged by Trump, with the outcome likely to determine whether the region moves toward new agreements — or deeper conflict.
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