When the talks began on June 23, there appeared to be considerable pessimism on the Israeli side. However, there is now a chance that something good can come from the pessimism.<\/p>\n
One thing that might happen is that Lebanon<\/a> could be pressured to ensure that its army can administer areas from which the IDF withdraws.<\/p>\n This kind of \u201cpilot\u201d project has been under discussion for a month or more. In addition, the US has discussed possibly supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces by vetting certain units to improve them.<\/p>\n So far, it\u2019s just talk.<\/p>\n The Lebanese Army proved incapable of disarming Hezbollah in 2025. In 2025, it had a real opportunity, its biggest chance in decades, to actually do something.<\/p>\n Hezbollah was weakened and cut off from Iran. Iran suffered blows from Israel and the US in June 2025. Hezbollah could have been disarmed, possibly in some areas.<\/p>\n The Lebanese Army preferred to claim it was doing things, but not actually do anything. It squandered a huge opportunity.<\/p>\n Now there is a chance to try again. Arab News noted on June 24 that \u201ctalks between Israel and Lebanon include discussion of a US-backed proposal for Israeli forces to hand over some of the territory they have invaded during the war with Hezbollah to the Lebanese military, according to Israeli and Lebanese officials.\u201d<\/p>\n The report said that \u201cthe Israeli officials said the Lebanese troops involved would undergo US training and vetting to ensure they are not linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah, while Israel would maintain a military presence in a buffer zone along the \u200cborder.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a big deal. The concept of the pilot project would be a revolution for Lebanon. It is now supposed to be discussed in the coming days.<\/p>\n Consolidation of ceasefire underway, nitty-gritty discussed<\/p>\n \u201cLebanese President Joseph Aoun confirmed that determination of the model areas remains under discussion \u2018pending approval from the Israeli side,'” Arab News noted.<\/p>\n \u201cWork is underway to consolidate the ceasefire in the south, to be followed by the withdrawal of Israeli forces, the deployment of the Lebanese army, the return of the residents, the release of prisoners, and the start of the reconstruction process,\u201d the Lebanese Presidency said.<\/p>\n Now the nitty-gritty has to be discussed. \u201cAsked about the Israeli officials\u2019 comments, a senior Lebanese security official said discussions were ongoing in Washington \u2060and that Wednesday would see specific military-to-military discussions, \u200cincluding on the pilot zones,\u201d Arab News noted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u200cLebanese official said the discussions would focus on a timeline \u200cfor withdrawal and that any plan would emerge only after \u200cthe final day of talks on Thursday. The official did not respond to a request for comment on the Israeli officials\u2019 account of US vetting of Lebanese<\/a> troops.\u201d<\/p>\n Al-Ain news in the UAE, Reuters, and others have reported essentially the same information. It remains to be seen if this will actually happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new round of Israel-Lebanon talks began in Washington on June 23. The talks look to be taking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23024,56,86,1031,85,46,1486,43,2586],"class_list":["post-508777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-airstrikes","tag-ceasefire","tag-hezbollah","tag-idf","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-memorandum-of-understanding","tag-news","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/726930.jpeg\"\/)
A mourner reacts as he attends the funeral of two Hezbollah fighters, who were killed before an interim deal between the U.S. and Iran, in Nabatieh, Lebanon, June 23, 2026. (credit: REUTERS\/STRINGER)Lebanese Army proves incapable of disarming weakened, cut-off Hezbollah<\/p>\n