Lebanon currently has no plans to establish normal relations with Israel, with its primary goal being to achieve a “state of no war” with its southern neighbor, President Joseph Aoun stated on Friday.
Aoun’s remarks come amid efforts by the Trump administration to expand the Abraham Accords, which were signed in 2020 and included historic agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Meanwhile, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa mentioned in May during a visit to France that Syria is engaging in indirect talks with Israel to avoid military escalations along their shared border. These discussions about peace have intensified following the removal of President Bashar Assad from power in December.
Aoun emphasized that in the future, only the Lebanese state will hold weapons and that decisions about going to war would be made by the Lebanese government. This statement appears to address the militant group Hezbollah, which fought a 14-month conflict with Israel and suffered significant losses, including the deaths of key political and military leaders.
Although Hezbollah claims it has withdrawn its armed presence near the border with Israel, it refuses to disarm elsewhere in Lebanon until Israel pulls back from five strategic border points and ceases its near-daily airstrikes on Lebanese territory.
Earlier this week, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack met with Lebanese officials in Beirut, expressing satisfaction with their response to proposals aimed at disarming Hezbollah.
The presence of Hezbollah’s weapons has long been a major issue since Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Hezbollah has fought two wars with Israel since then: one in 2006 and another beginning a day after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the Gaza conflict.
The recent Hezbollah-Israel war ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November and resulted in over 4,000 deaths in Lebanon, along with approximately $11 billion in damage. In Israel, 127 people, including 80 soldiers, lost their lives.
“Peace means a state of no war, and that is our main focus in Lebanon at this time,” Aoun told visitors. He added that normalization with Israel is not part of Lebanon’s current foreign policy.
Lebanon and Israel have technically been at war since 1948.
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