First published on 972Mag on July 1, 2026.
Lebanon Walks Into Israel’s Trap
Inside Lebanon, the 14-point “framework agreement” that the government signed with Israel last week is widely seen as the most controversial deal involving the two parties to date. A quick search for “withdrawal” in the 1,300-word document gives a sense of why: The word is nowhere to be found.
Although the Lebanese government has attempted to frame the agreement to its citizens using the language of sovereignty, the only roadmap to the end of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon is a tentative, limited “redeployment” to two “pilot zones.” Israel would allow the Lebanese army to enter those zones, but the army would not assume “full and effective security responsibility” until Hezbollah’s military capabilities have been fully dismantled.
Already, this points to an obvious problem: Who determines whether a zone is demilitarized? Here, of course, the answer is Israel — the very state occupying Lebanese lands. What this agreement effectively dictates is the legitimization of Israel’s occupation of all territory that it deems to pose a security risk, with the Lebanese government, which includes Hezbollah, having no say in the matter.
In essence, we are seeing the confirmation of what Hezbollah itself has warned of all along: Negotiating with an occupying power without first demanding the end of the occupation is a fatal mistake. Yet this is exactly what the Lebanese government did, entering talks with a militarily superior occupying force whose politicians have repeatedly threatened to destroy their country.
Iran included Lebanon in its memorandum of understanding with the United States, which linked a permanent end to the U.S.-Iran war to “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.” The United States and Iran had also reportedly agreed to establish a “deconfliction cell” in Lebanon to ensure a lasting Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire — which had notably excluded Israel from taking part in any security arrangement on Lebanese territory.
Rather than take advantage of this leverage against Israel, however, the Lebanese government wanted to distance itself from Iran and deny Hezbollah a domestic political win. But in a context where Israel is the occupying power, this has only made Lebanon more dependent on the United States and its emotionally and mentally unstable president. This is the same president who has repeatedly dismissed the Israeli war on Lebanon as insignificant compared to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
And so we are left with the only constant in the Lebanese government’s negotiation arsenal: hope. Lebanon has effectively put its sovereignty in the hands of Donald Trump’s United States. It is as if the past two years never happened — as if Trump has not threatened to annex entire countries and made clear his disdain for nations he deems to be weak.
As I wrote at the start of this war for +972 Magazine, the Lebanese government has adopted the “land for peace” framework, essentially trading recognition of Israel for the return of our lands. Yet in this case, recognition is accompanied by the legitimization of the Israeli army’s occupation — in return for the mere hope that Netanyahu’s Israel will change its long-established course.
This does not, however, mean that Hezbollah’s position was tenable either. Part of the problem is that the Lebanese government was further weakened after Hezbollah took repeated unilateral action against Israel, without the Lebanese government’s approval. This is what has caused a local backlash against the group, which in turn moved the Lebanese government to go to the Americans directly.
This dynamic was particularly evident in the latest round of mass violence, when Hezbollah decided to join the war on the side of Iran after the U.S.-Israel killing of Ayatollah Khamenei, a figure with no popular appeal in Lebanon beyond Hezbollah’s support base. To many Lebanese, already exhausted from the previous war, the Ayatollah’s assassination did not warrant a re-entry into the war against a U.S.-backed military superpower with a long track record of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Path Not Taken
When considering what could have been done instead, we should start by recognizing the unenvious position that the Lebanese government has found itself in — both as a result of Hezbollah’s unilateral decision to enter the war and, especially, Israel’s campaigns of mass destruction and ethnic cleansing.
It is hard to imagine a solution that did not require some form of compromise that would have left a considerable percentage of the population unsatisfied. For the government, choosing direct negotiations always ran the risk of being called traitors; avoiding negotiations entirely, meanwhile, would likely have seen it accused of abandoning its responsibility.
That being said, the Lebanese government’s aggressive stance toward Iran has proven extremely short-sighted. Reducing Iranian influence over Lebanese affairs is a noble goal, but the decision to do this while large parts of the country were under Israeli bombardment and occupation is puzzling, especially as the only armed force capable of pushing back against Israel is backed by Iran.
It is not as though there was a forthcoming alternative to eliminate Iran’s role in Lebanon’s affairs without also sacrificing Lebanese sovereignty. Did the French, Turks, Brits, or Saudis propose to help us instead of Iran? The Lebanese army is, after all, itself backed by the United
States — the same United States that has bankrolled Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its mass destruction of Lebanon. President Trump’s occasional outbursts of anger toward Netanyahu have not, thus far, led to any actual Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, let alone to a cessation of fire (despite the many so-called “ceasefires”).
What southern Lebanon is effectively being asked to do is abandon all resistance against the Israeli occupation — resistance that is only currently possible with Iranian support. No security guarantee has been proposed in return for Hezbollah’s disarmament. No independent mechanism has been brought in as part of this agreement, and the existing United Nations body, UNIFIL, has been repeatedly targeted by Israel.
Whatever one wants to say about the threats to Lebanese sovereignty posed by Iranian influence, only one country is occupying southern Lebanon and demolishing entire Lebanese villages — and that country is not Iran.
Could there have been a compromise between the Lebanese government’s desire to distance itself from Iran and the necessity of Hezbollah to repel Israel’s invasion? We may never know, because that is not the path that the Lebanese government has taken. Even if one were to argue that entering direct negotiations with an untrustworthy adversary was our only option, it still does not explain the Lebanese government’s aggressive stance toward Iran.
Israel has killed over 4,000 people in Lebanon in the past few months without the U.S.-dependent Lebanese army firing a single shot back. At the same time, the Lebanese government made the Iranian ambassador persona non grata, took down photos of the Ayatollah, and deported members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It even ordered the media not to use the word “resistance” when describing Hezbollah.
What has that achieved? Opposing Hezbollah’s armed activities is one thing, but allowing Israel to enforce its will over Lebanon has only reaffirmed Hezbollah’s commitment to armed resistance. And even if Hezbollah is permanently defeated, what comes next? It was Israel’s 1982 occupation of southern Lebanon that birthed Hezbollah in the first place, and the conditions that led to its rise have only worsened since.
With the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran failing to topple the regime — and arguably even strengthening it — it is possible that we will now see a Hezbollah willing to take even more risks. And if not Hezbollah, there are hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who have been forced out of their homes, many of whom have subsequently witnessed Israel demolish their entire world. As long as Israeli impunity remains the order of the day, there will always be those willing to take up arms against it.
The Israel Faultlines in Lebanese Society
The war has widened existing fault lines in Lebanese society, and the specter of a civil war is never too far away. As the Lebanese journalist Justin Salhani told me, “half the country doesn’t know how the other half is living” — in other words, under relentless Israeli bombardment. This has resulted in the development of two opposing stances regarding the question of how to deal with Israel.
Contrary to how this is often reported, the split is not due to a difference of opinion toward Israel itself. As a recent nationwide poll made clear, a vast majority of Lebanese (87 percent) across all sects view Israel as their enemy (51 percent and 38 percent, respectively, view the United States and Iran as enemies).
Instead, the division arises from the question of how to respond to Israeli aggression: 54 percent support diplomacy, whereas 35 percent prefer armed resistance.
Unsurprisingly, Israel’s mass bombardments of Lebanese civilians have not made it many friends. Regardless of their feelings toward Hezbollah, everyone in Lebanon has seen footage of children being pulled out of the rubble, and most by now have had direct experience dealing with the Israeli army, if only through the incessant noise of its drones. Israel has used every so-called “ceasefire” as an opportunity to continue bombing Lebanon with little to no reaction. And of the 54 towns and villages under Israeli control, at least 46 have been severely damaged or razed to the ground.
Those who argue for Lebanon to side with Iran, even if only out of short-term necessity, are working from the assumption that no other country is willing to support Lebanon the way Iran has supported Hezbollah — which has so far proven correct. They even argue that any leverage Lebanon has is itself, as Salhani put it to me, “thanks to the Iranian MoU” with the United States. In other words, Iran demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon as part of its negotiations with the Americans may have led the Americans to put pressure on the Israelis.
As for those who argue for negotiations and even “peace” with Israel, this should not be confused with a desire for normalization. We are not about to see Israeli tourists skiing atop Mount Lebanon. It is simply the case that a majority of the population is exhausted from the repeated wars and desperate for them to end, even under conditions that Hezbollah has described as “humiliating.”
In any case, the agreement is unlikely to endure. “It will be very difficult to implement it,” Salhani told me: The status quo is fragile, resting on the whims of Netanyahu as well as the still-volatile geopolitical situation.
If, for some reason, Trump — who recently said that Israel has been fighting Hezbollah “for too long” — actually forces the Israelis to fully withdraw from Lebanon, those pushing for direct negotiations will have been proven right, and Hezbollah’s insistence on armed resistance will have been proven wrong. But in the absence of a complete Israeli withdrawal, we should expect that tensions will rise yet again and possibly lead to another escalation, which could even push Iran to break off its agreement with the United States.
Far from being “the minor war,” as Trump recently called it, Israel’s war on Lebanon is symptomatic of and deeply connected to wider dynamics throughout the region. Israeli militarism, expansionism, and impunity have destabilizing effects beyond just Lebanon, as the ongoing repercussions of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran make clear. As long as this remains the case, we should be skeptical of any “ceasefires” and agreements.