U.S., Israel, Lebanon Sign Trilateral Framework Agreement on Southern Lebanon

Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors at the State Department in Washington on June 26, concluding a fifth round of direct negotiations with the signing of a trilateral framework agreement intended to chart a path toward ending hostilities and, ultimately, full peace between Israel and Lebanon. Israel, Lebanon, and the United States signed the trilateral framework agreement aimed at paving the way for an eventual peace deal between the two long-time Middle East adversaries. Rubio described the deal at the signing ceremony as "the beginning of the beginning." The agreement does not establish a final peace settlement, impose a binding timeline for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territory, or include Hezbollah as a signatory.

The document's operative mechanism is a staged, conditional process. The State Department said the framework is designed to create a process for dismantling Hezbollah's infrastructure, restoring Lebanese control over territory taken by Israeli forces during the fighting, and creating a U.S.-facilitated Military Coordination Group for Lebanon. Only once those conditions are met, the framework says, will Israel be able to "progressively redeploy" out of Lebanon. The framework also outlines two "pilot zones" for an initial Israeli withdrawal, where the Lebanese military "will gradually assume full and effective security responsibility." The agreement was signed by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad, with Rubio presiding. Rubio also announced an "immediate" $100 million U.S. contribution toward humanitarian assistance in coordination with the United Nations, and said the Defense Department was prepared to reimburse the Lebanese Armed Forces more than $30 million under existing authorities to support implementation. The week's talks were the fifth round of mediated negotiations between the two sides.

The framework's context matters. Israel began a ground invasion of Lebanon on March 16, 2026, and the Israeli Defense Forces expanded their military occupation within the country to a total of 570 to 600 square kilometers by the time of the subsequent ceasefire. With Israel having violated the November 2024 Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement on a near-daily basis and Iran being Hezbollah's primary backer, the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei moved the militant group to resume rocket strikes on Israel on March 2. Israel designates its forward-deployed boundary inside Lebanese territory the "yellow line," which extends between 6 and 10 kilometers into Lebanese territory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated after the signing: "The most important thing is, first of all, that Israel remains in the security zone in southern Lebanon. This is a major achievement, and we will maintain it as long as Hezbollah has not disarmed." This sequencing, under which Israeli withdrawal is conditioned on verified Hezbollah disarmament rather than mandated independently, is the central structural tension in the deal. The agreement does not force Israel to withdraw from the large area of southern Lebanon it continues to occupy, and Israel also appears to be signaling that it will continue its attacks in the country if it deems them necessary.

The agreement sits within a broader diplomatic architecture the Trump administration has been constructing across the region. The Israel-Lebanon talks were separate from the interim deal signed by the leaders of the United States and Iran to end the fighting in the Islamic Republic, which set a 60-day period for negotiations on key issues including the future of Tehran's nuclear program. The Lebanese government had been wary of having Iran negotiate on its behalf, and Lebanon launched its own direct negotiations with Israel after the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. For the first time since the failure of the May 17 Agreement in 1983, Israel and the Lebanese government announced the opening of direct negotiations with the goal of reaching a peace agreement and disarming Hezbollah. Lebanon and Israel have never established formal diplomatic relations and remain, technically, in a state of war. The framework also establishes a trilateral Military Coordination Group for Lebanon, facilitated by the United States, to oversee implementation.

Hezbollah, which was excluded from the Washington talks, moved quickly to repudiate the agreement. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem called the deal "null and void," accused the Lebanese government of making unilateral concessions, and criticized provisions linking Israel's withdrawal to Hezbollah's disarmament, saying they effectively legitimized Israel's military presence and crossed "all red lines." Reuters reported that Qassem called the agreement a surrender to Israel, and the Amal movement also criticized the agreement as favoring Israel. At the parliamentary level, Hassan Fadlallah, a member of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, reiterated the group's rejection of Lebanon's direct negotiations with Israel on Al-Mayadeen TV and said Lebanese authorities "will not be able to enforce the agreement signed in Washington unless they go, with American support, to civil war." Qassem separately argued that the Iran-U.S. memorandum of understanding, signed on June 15, should govern the Lebanon file rather than the Washington framework. Qassem said the Iran-U.S. memorandum, which he said guarantees Lebanon's territorial integrity, should form the basis for ending the conflict rather than Friday's agreement brokered by Washington.

Implementation risks are immediate and structural. The Lebanese government lacks the coercive capacity to disarm Hezbollah absent a direct confrontation, a condition Fadlallah characterized as civil war. The new deal does not specifically call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces and instead ties it to the disarmament of Hezbollah, a condition repeatedly rejected by the Iran-backed armed group. Difficulty was underscored when Israel carried out a drone attack in southern Lebanon the day after the signing, with an IDF official telling CNN the strike was aimed at eliminating a threat to its forces. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, while publicly endorsing the agreement, framed it as a continuation of prior commitments and United Nations Security Council resolutions, most notably Resolution 1701, which requires the Lebanese state to maintain sole military authority south of the Litani River. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam wrote on social media that the agreement "aims to achieve Israel's withdrawal from all Lebanese territories," and added that the deal was essentially a continuation of past agreements and United Nations resolutions stipulating that the Lebanese military maintain authority over all parts of Lebanon. Whether Beirut can convert that legal framework into operational facts on the ground, without U.S. and international military backing sufficient to compel Hezbollah compliance, remains the agreement's unresolved core question.

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