The Lebanese government has made a formal demand to Israel before attending the next round of negotiations: that its forces withdraw from the two “pilot zones” contemplated in the framework agreement signed on June 26 in Washington. The condition, communicated to the State Department according to a Lebanese diplomatic source cited by AFP, turns what was supposed to be the starting point of the implementation into a preliminary dispute that threatens to block the diplomatic process.
The choice of Rome as the venue generated friction from the very first moment. Israel announced the change on Tuesday without notifying the Lebanese delegation, which provoked an initial rejection from Beirut. President Joseph Aoun finally accepted after receiving guarantees from Washington that it would maintain “the same level of involvement in the negotiations and the same policy in managing contacts” as in the previous five rounds. The source noted that Israel agreed to the transfer to “reduce the pressure” exerted by Washington during previous negotiations.
The framework agreement signed on June 26 by the United States, Israel, and Lebanon establishes the disarmament of Hezbollah and the progressive withdrawal of Israeli forces as the regular Lebanese army deploys in designated areas. However, the text does not set any withdrawal timetable, and Israeli officials have reiterated that their forces will remain in a ten-kilometer “security zone” as long as Hezbollah remains armed. That asymmetry—immediate pressure on Beirut to disarm the group, indefinite timeframe for the Israeli withdrawal—concentrates the main criticisms of the agreement.
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A motorcycle passes in front of a clothing store that has reopened its doors and inside which mannequin heads are displayed, with the windows damaged by the explosion, while on the other side of the street the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli attack can be seen, in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, on July 5, 2026.
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Israel continues to carry out attacks in southern Lebanon despite the agreed framework. On Wednesday, two people were killed in a bombing in the area, according to AFP. President Aoun denounced that the sustained attacks undermine efforts to reach a lasting solution and asked Washington to pressure Tel Aviv to respect the ceasefire. His visit to the White House, scheduled for before the end of the month—media outlets point to July 21—will be the moment of greatest diplomatic pressure regarding the U.S. commitment to the Israeli withdrawal.
Hezbollah, which did not participate in the negotiations, rejects the agreement in its entirety. Its secretary-general, Naim Qassem, reiterated that rejection on Wednesday during the events preceding the burial of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who died on February 28 in joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. “Not a single clause of the agreement will pass,” Qassem stated. The mourning process in Tehran adds a symbolic dimension to the moment: Khamenei was Hezbollah’s main external backer, and his death coincides with a period in which Iran had demanded that Lebanon be included in its own agreement with Washington, something Beirut rejected by opting for a bilateral path.
The historical precedent most cited by analysts is the agreement of May 17, 1983, which set a timetable for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon but made it conditional on the departure of Syrian troops, a condition that Damascus never met. Israel remained in the south for sixteen more years. The 2026 framework agreement replicates that logic by linking the Israeli withdrawal to the disarmament of Hezbollah, a condition that Beirut cannot guarantee on its own. If Rome does not produce concrete progress on deadlines, that precedent will weigh on every round that follows.
