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Trump Says Lebanese and Israeli Leaders to Speak, Pakistan Says Lebanon Peace Essential

TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump speaks to the press outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 13, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)
TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump speaks to the press outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 13, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)
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Trump Says Lebanese and Israeli Leaders to Speak, Pakistan Says Lebanon Peace Essential

TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump speaks to the press outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 13, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)
TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump speaks to the press outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 13, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)

US President Donald Trump said Lebanese and Israeli leaders will speak for the first time in decades on Thursday, while Pakistan said peace in Lebanon was essential for talks it is mediating between Washington and Tehran on ending the Iran war. 

The Lebanon conflict spiraled out of the US-Israeli war with Iran, with the Iran-backed Hezbollah opening fire in support of Tehran on March 2, prompting an Israeli offensive in Lebanon just 15 months after the last major conflict. 

The Israeli security cabinet convened late on Wednesday to discuss a possible ceasefire in Lebanon. 

"Peace in Lebanon is essential for (Iran) peace talks," Tahir Andrabi, spokesperson for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, said. 

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was "trying to get a little breathing room" between Israel and Lebanon. 

"It has been a long time since the ‌two leaders have ‌spoken, like 34 years. It will happen tomorrow. Nice!" Trump wrote in the post published ‌before ⁠midnight on Wednesday, ⁠Washington time. The post did not give any further details. 

Gila Gamliel, a member of Israel's security cabinet, told Israel's Army Radio that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would "speak for the first time with the president of Lebanon after so many years of no contact between the two countries". 

A senior Lebanese official told Reuters Lebanon had no information about a call between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Netanyahu. 

BEIRUT AT ODDS WITH HEZBOLLAH 

The Lebanese government has been sharply at odds with Hezbollah over its decision to enter the war, having spent the last year seeking to secure the peaceful disarmament of the group founded by ⁠Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982. 

Beirut banned Hezbollah's military activities on March 2. 

The Israeli ‌Prime Minister’s office and Aoun's office did not immediately respond to requests ‌for comment. The office of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also told Reuters it had no information about contact between Lebanese and Israeli ‌leaders. 

Washington on Wednesday expressed optimism about reaching a deal to end the war with Iran. The sides agreed ‌a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war on April 8, following mediation by Pakistan. 

Israel and the US have said the campaign against Hezbollah was not part of that ceasefire, though Pakistan's prime minister had said the truce would include Lebanon, as demanded by Iran. 

FIGHTING IN KEY LEBANESE TOWN 

A senior Israeli official and a senior Lebanese official said on Wednesday Netanyahu's government was under heavy pressure from Washington ‌to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon. 

A senior US administration official said on Wednesday the Trump administration had not asked for a ceasefire, but the US president "would welcome ⁠the end of hostilities ⁠in Lebanon as part of a peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon". 

Netanyahu, in a video statement released late on Wednesday, said the Israeli military continued to strike at Hezbollah and was about to "overcome" the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, located at the border. 

The senior Lebanese official said that Lebanon’s assessment was that Israel wanted to secure a victory in Bint Jbeil before diplomatic progress could be made. 

The Israeli military said its troops were continuing "targeted ground operations in southern Lebanon". 

In Israel, sirens rang out warning of incoming rocket fire, sending residents of several Israeli northern towns running to bomb shelters. There were no immediate reports of injuries. 

Hezbollah kept up its attacks, firing rockets at two towns in Israel, the group's al-Manar television reported. 

Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors held rare talks in Washington on Tuesday. 

Iran has said Lebanon must be included in any agreement to end the wider war in the Middle East, while Washington has pushed back, saying there is no link between the two sets of talks. 

Hezbollah on Wednesday condemned Tuesday's meeting in Washington, saying it would deepen the rift among Lebanese. 

 

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Arab World

Israel Resumes Gaza Attacks, Targets Palestinian Factions

A Palestinian child eats from a bowl after receiving food from a charity kitchen at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday. (AFP)
A Palestinian child eats from a bowl after receiving food from a charity kitchen at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday. (AFP)
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Israel Resumes Gaza Attacks, Targets Palestinian Factions

A Palestinian child eats from a bowl after receiving food from a charity kitchen at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday. (AFP)
A Palestinian child eats from a bowl after receiving food from a charity kitchen at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday. (AFP)

Israeli forces resumed attacks in the Gaza Strip after a two-day pause requested by mediators and the United States to allow progress in ceasefire talks hosted by Cairo in recent days, where the parties agreed on wording related to the issue of weapons.

Palestinian factions had asked mediators to stop violations and assassinations in Gaza as a condition for advancing the talks, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat at the time.

Mediators then contacted US President Donald Trump’s administration and the Board of Peace to press Israel, before an agreement was reached on halting attacks for several days.

Assassinations and destroyed residential blocks

The airstrikes stopped from dawn Tuesday until Thursday afternoon, then resumed with attacks targeting operatives from Palestinian factions and fresh strikes on residential blocks. Israel used the same approach in the previous round of talks, when it halted airstrikes for two days before resuming them.

The first strike on Thursday targeted member of the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the factions that joined the Cairo talks. He was wounded after being hit on the roof of his family home north of Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.

About two hours later, another strike targeted a member of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, in the Sabra neighborhood south of Gaza City as he stood on the roof of his family home. He was killed immediately.

Asharq Al-Awsat learned he was one of the most prominent members in Qassam’s engineering unit.

Roughly three hours later, an Israeli drone struck two young men west of Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, killing one of them. He was a prominent field operative in the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, based in the Jabalia camp.

At night, Israeli warplanes struck two small rooms and farmland near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, destroying the site.

They later destroyed two homes and damaged a residential block in Maghazi camp in central Gaza. Later, they destroyed several homes and shops and damaged others after bombing another nearby residential block in the same camp.

The bombing displaced dozens of families who lost their only shelter. Israel has stepped up attacks on intact residential blocks, or those only slightly damaged during the war, especially in the central area, one of the least damaged parts of Gaza and an area where Israeli forces have not carried out major operations.

On Friday, four Palestinians were wounded in shooting incidents and artillery shelling near the yellow line. A young man survived after a drone struck the vehicle he was riding in deep in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. No injuries were reported.

Israeli forces also expanded the yellow line in the Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City, specifically along Salah al-Din Street, in the fourth such operation in about a month and a half.

Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson, said in a press statement that moving the yellow line, along with the bombardment and displacement that accompanied it, was a flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement.

He said it reflected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threats to increase Israel’s control over Gaza, amid the silence of the Board of Peace and the inability of mediating and guarantor states to stop the violations. He said the aim was to blow up the negotiating track and the recent positive atmosphere.

Negative response

The escalation came despite mediators’ success in reaching wording with Hamas and seven other Palestinian factions, in the absence of Fatah, on the clauses of a road map presented by Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza at the Board of Peace.

The most sensitive clause concerned weapons, stating that they would be confined and stored rather than handed over, and that this would be done through a Palestinian body, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.

In return, the committee would enter Gaza and assume its duties, Israel would withdraw, and the humanitarian protocol from the first phase would be implemented.

Hamas and the Palestinian factions had been waiting for Israel’s response to what had been agreed. By Thursday evening, they had received neither a positive nor a negative reply.

A source from Hamas told Asharq Al-Awsat that the renewed escalation amounted to a clear response from Netanyahu’s government rejecting the wording, adding that the movement would wait for the official response from mediators.

Asharq Al-Awsat learned that parties outside the mediating states, as well as parties within the Board of Peace and the Gaza administration committee, support the wording reached on Gaza’s weapons and see it as an opportunity to build on.

Arab World

Report: Syrian President Has No Intention of Intervening in Lebanon

05 April 2026, Syria, Damascus: Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa attends a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Ukrainian Presidency/dpa)
05 April 2026, Syria, Damascus: Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa attends a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Ukrainian Presidency/dpa)
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Report: Syrian President Has No Intention of Intervening in Lebanon

05 April 2026, Syria, Damascus: Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa attends a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Ukrainian Presidency/dpa)
05 April 2026, Syria, Damascus: Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa attends a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Ukrainian Presidency/dpa)

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa told visitors that Damascus has no intention of intervening in Lebanon, two of them told AFP, days after US President Donald Trump suggested it might be willing to do so.

One of those present, requesting anonymity to speak freely, said that Sharaa told dozens of notables and dignitaries from the Damascus province that "what is being circulated about Syria entering Lebanon is nothing more than rumors".

The Syrian presidency announced on Thursday that Sharaa received the delegation at the presidential palace in a meeting that addressed service and development issues of concern to the province's residents.

The statement made no mention of Sharaa's remarks on Lebanon.

It came with Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah still trading blows in the country, despite a conditional ceasefire announced by Lebanese and Israeli envoys earlier this month in Washington.

Hezbollah rejected the agreement, which makes no mention of Israel having to cease attacks or withdraw its troops from Lebanon.

Trump told US broadcaster NBC last week that Sharaa was willing to help against Hezbollah, which has been fighting a war with Israel since March 2 as part of the broader Middle East conflict.

"I'd like to see a more surgical attack on Hezbollah. I think it should be more surgical. And we can help them with that, or we can recommend Syria," he said.

"Syria's doing a very good job of cleaning up their act. They have a very good leader. They have a leader that's really done a good job in a short period of time. And he would love to help."

In a televised interview on Thursday, Syrian interior ministry spokesperson Noureddine al-Baba aid that Damascus stands with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in "preserving Lebanon's security and the sovereignty of the Lebanese state".

"Coordination with our brother Lebanon is the cornerstone of any possible role that Syria can play in resolving Lebanese issues," he added.

Responding to Trump's words, Baba said that "the Syrian and Lebanese sides are best positioned to interpret these statements and agree on a formula that serves both countries within the framework of the common Arab vision".

Syria, which under the Assad family was a close ally of Hezbollah, dominated Lebanon for decades following a military intervention in the latter's 1975-1990 civil war, withdrawing only in 2005, making any new military involvement a fraught proposition.

Hezbollah fought alongside the Syrian government in that country's own civil war, making the new authorities in Damascus, which took over after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in 2024, deeply hostile to it.

Arab World

Vatican Envoy’s Aid Convoy Stopped by Israeli Forces in South Lebanon

Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon, June 12, 2026. (Reuters)
Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon, June 12, 2026. (Reuters)
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Vatican Envoy’s Aid Convoy Stopped by Israeli Forces in South Lebanon

Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon, June 12, 2026. (Reuters)
Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon, June 12, 2026. (Reuters)

An aid convoy organized by the Vatican envoy to Lebanon that was headed for Christian villages in the country's south was stopped by the Israeli military and forced to change course, a convoy member told AFP on Friday.

A number of Christian-majority villages near the border have been caught up in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah but many residents have refused to leave.

"While approaching the village of Debl on Thursday, we got face-to-face with several Israeli tanks" who stopped the convoy, a member of the convoy told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"There were several tank and machine gun shots towards rear positions that we could not identify... which caused panic," he added.

The person said it was not clear "whether they wanted to intimidate us or they were targeting Hezbollah positions".

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military and the Vatican did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The convoy, led by the Apostolic Nuncio Paolo Borgia, included 25 trucks and several cars transporting residents wanting to return home.

The route was coordinated with UN peacekeepers through an international committee created to monitor a ceasefire that sought to end the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

After being halted for over an hour, the convoy took another longer route to reach their destination after 12 hours, the member said.

Vincent Gelot, head of Catholic organization Oeuvre d'Orient which regularly takes part in aid convoys, told AFP that the people who chose to remain in their villages "are completely isolated from the rest of the country".

"They are deprived of resources because most of them are farmers. They do not have access to their fields."

The villages are surrounded by areas and localities Israel has warned to evacuate, with Gelot saying they are "threatened to disappear".

On Tuesday, the association of Christian border villages in southern Lebanon urged authorities to "immediately open safe humanitarian and medical corridors to ensure the access of citizens, aid and medical and relief teams to the affected and isolated villages".

On June 2, an Israeli drone strike killed a student alongside her father and brother as she was returning to her border village after sitting for university exams in Beirut.