Southern Suburbs on a Knife’s Edge

The fourth round of direct Lebanese-Israeli negotiations convened Tuesday evening at the U.S. State Department in Washington, under American auspices, as tensions remained high in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army continues its military operations and presses further north of the Litani River. The Lebanese-Israeli talks, in which former Lebanese ambassador Simon Karam is participating on the Lebanese side, are set to resume Wednesday in the American capital.

On the military front, Israeli aircraft carried out a series of airstrikes throughout Tuesday and into the evening, targeting positions as well as weapons and ammunition depots in several villages across the districts of Tyre, Bint Jbeil and Nabatiyeh. The cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh were not spared. By the end of the day, the Israeli army reported the presence of “dozens of Hezbollah militiamen” who had reportedly retreated into Tyre’s Christian quarter.

Yet it was the situation in Beirut’s southern suburbs that dominated the attention of political and diplomatic circles on Tuesday. The eleventh hour agreement brokered Monday evening by President Donald Trump, following urgent contacts with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, stipulated that Israel would suspend what appeared to be an imminent air assault on the southern suburbs, in exchange for Hezbollah halting its rocket fire against Israel. The deal secured by the American president thus rests on a simple equation: the southern suburbs in exchange for northern Israel.

Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Israel Katz, made it clear on Tuesday that should the pro-Iranian party resume firing on Israeli territory, Israel would strike Hezbollah positions in Beirut’s southern suburbs. That approach was rejected Tuesday by a senior Hezbollah official, who stated that the group would not accept any partial ceasefire and remained committed to securing a comprehensive and permanent cessation of hostilities. That position mirrors that of the Lebanese government, which intends to press the same case during the Washington talks.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Beirut’s southern suburbs are caught in a precarious equilibrium, given the ongoing Israeli military operations in the south, a dynamic that could trigger retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah against Israel. In that context, Tel Aviv announced late Tuesday that one of its commando units had deployed north of the Litani River, near the town of Zawtar.

The other development that captured the attention of media outlets in both the United States and Israel on Tuesday was the tone surrounding Monday’s phone call between President Trump and Netanyahu. An Israeli television channel confirmed late in the day that the exchange between the two leaders had been particularly tense. An American website reported Tuesday morning that the White House chief had addressed the Israeli prime minister in terms that were far from cordial. The same Israeli channel further reported that sources close to Netanyahu said on Tuesday morning that Monday’s exchange had been the most strained contact between the U.S. president and the Israeli prime minister since the start of Donald Trump’s second term nearly a year and a half ago. Netanyahu was scheduled to convene his ministerial team on Tuesday evening to review developments across the region.

Finally, the UN Security Council held an emergency session overnight Monday, at France’s request, to address the deteriorating military situation in Lebanon.