Wael Sabbagh, whose mother Afaf Sidaoui and brother Hassan, were killed in an Israeli attack on an apartment building on April 8, stands at the site of the strike in Tallet El Khayat in Beirut, Lebanon, April 15, 2026 [Jihed Abidellaoui/ Reuters]By Al Jazeera StaffPublished On 16 Apr 202616 Apr 2026
United States President Donald Trump says the leaders of Israel and Lebanon will speak for the first time in 34 years on Thursday.
The announcement on Wednesday came a day after Israel and Lebanon’s envoys to the US held rare, direct talks in Washington, DC, to discuss an end to the Israeli attacks on its neighbour.
“Trying to get a little breathing room between Israel and Lebanon,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“It has been a long time since the two leaders have spoken, like 34 years. It will happen tomorrow. Nice!”
The US president did not specify who will be involved in the talks.
Lebanon was drawn into the US and Israel’s war on Iran on March 2 after Tehran-aligned Hezbollah resumed attacks on Israel.
Hezbollah said the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, on February 28, as well as Israel’s near-daily violations of a ceasefire it agreed to in Lebanon in November 2024.
Since then, Israeli attacks have killed more than 2,000 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1.2 million others. The Israeli military has also launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, seeking to seize more territory and create what it calls a “buffer zone”.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has ordered the military to expand the invasion in southern Lebanon, towards the east. He said that Israel was pursuing negotiations with the Lebanese government alongside its military campaign against Hezbollah in the hopes of disarming the group and achieving a “sustainable peace” with its northern neighbour.
The Lebanese government, which is not a party to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, is seeking a ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.
Al Jazeera’s Malcom Webb, reporting from the Lebanese capital, Beirut, said the Israeli military launched its invasion with the aim of occupying the entire territory from Lebanon’s southern border with Israel to the Litani river, about 30 kilometers to the north.
“But it hasn’t succeeded in doing that. It’s met resistance for the last six weeks from Hezbollah. Since then it talked about an 8 or a 10 kilometer buffer zone,” Webb said. “A lot of the fighting in recent days has been in towns and villages close to the border.”
And even if a ceasefire were to happen in the coming days, “there are still major questions for the 1.2 million people in Lebanon who’ve been forced from their homes by Israel’s Invasion, evacuation orders and air strikes, and if, or when they get to go home,” Webb said.
These include the hundreds of thousands of people from the villages and towns in southern Lebanon, which are now occupied by Israeli forces. “In some villages along the border, many homes have been blown up, while others across all of the south and in Beirut’s southern suburbs have been destroyed by Israel’s air strikes as well,” he added.
