{"id":552698,"date":"2026-07-21T18:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/552698\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T18:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:00:09","slug":"lebanese-president-set-to-meet-trump-as-beirut-seeks-israeli-withdrawal-israel-attacks-lebanon-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/552698\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanese president set to meet Trump as Beirut seeks Israeli withdrawal | Israel attacks Lebanon News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is in Washington, DC, seeking the backing of the United States for an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and support for its army as it moves to assert control over areas long dominated by Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

Aoun<\/a> is due to meet US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, before he concludes his four-day visit, following another round of US-mediated talks<\/a> between Lebanese and Israeli officials in Rome last week, where negotiators discussed how to implement an agreement signed by the two sides on June 26.<\/p>\n

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Aoun and his wife had arrived<\/a> at Joint Base Andrews on Saturday at the start of the official visit, according to the Lebanese presidency. It is the first visit to Washington by a Lebanese head of state since Michel Sleiman met President Barack Obama in 2009.<\/p>\n

Timothy Kaldas, deputy director at the Washington-DC based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, told Al Jazeera Aoun will seek US diplomatic and economic backing to strengthen the Lebanese state, while urging Trump to take concrete action to enforce the agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cSubstantively, he\u2019s going to want President Trump to go from saying that Israel\u2019s disproportionate use of force is counterproductive and that Israel needs to leave Lebanon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who met Aoun on Sunday, said Washington would back the agreement\u2019s full implementation, warning that Lebanon would \u201cnever be fully at peace\u201d as long as the Hezbollah issue remained unresolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you replace Hezbollah? You defeat and replace them with a government that is strong enough to be the sole force of arms in the country,\u201d Rubio said after the meeting.<\/p>\n

Sceptics in Lebanon fear that a military confrontation with Hezbollah could lead to a civil war. Government officials have also urged investment in the country\u2019s battered infrastructure to empower the weakened state, which Rubio echoed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not just about military stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is about how can we attract more US and international investment into Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Kaldas, Trump will seek assurances from Aoun \u201con his commitment to disarmament\u201d. \u201cThe [Lebanese] government has taken a lot of steps to show that but Trump\u2019s going to want to directly hear from the man and see if they can build a relationship built on trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Pilot zones\u2019<\/p>\n

The Israeli military said \u2060on Monday \u2060the planned gradual withdrawal under the agreement, dubbed the \u201cpilot zone programme\u201d, had \u200cbegun.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pilot serves as \u200ca test of the Lebanese Armed Forces\u2019 sovereignty in the three pilot villages, as the sole official authority authorised to bear arms in the area,\u201d an Israeli military official said.<\/p>\n

The plan will see Israeli forces withdraw from a small number of areas in southern Lebanon, even as it remains in others it has invaded since escalating its war on Hezbollah in March, killing more than 4,300 people and displacing 1.2 million others. It would also see Lebanese troops confiscating Hezbollah\u2019s weapons \u2060in parts of \u2060southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n

The Lebanese army said on Tuesday its units began deploying in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh in the Nabatieh region.<\/p>\n

The army renewed a call for residents not to enter the town until the security situation stabilises and to follow instructions from deployed military units for their own safety.<\/p>\n

A senior \u2060Lebanese military official told Reuters that army units were sweeping the town for unexploded ordnance, \u2060but much work remained before it could be declared safe for residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cArmy engineering teams have entered Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, and we are waiting for further instructions,\u201d said the town\u2019s mayor, Abed Ezzeddin. \u201cWe will inform residents once the area is confirmed to be safe and under the army\u2019s control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ezzeddin described the destruction as extremely extensive, saying \u2060more than half the town had been destroyed and that the remaining homes had suffered severe damage, leaving the village uninhabitable.<\/p>\n

He questioned whether residents could return safely while Israeli forces remained in \u2060neighbouring Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh, which he said was closely connected to Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh and only \u2060a five-minute walk away.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can I be sure that I can enter Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh safely?\u201d Ezzeddin asked. \u201cHow can I think of settling there when the Israelis are right next to me in Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh?\u201d<\/p>\n

Though recent talks in Rome signalled that the agreement\u2019s implementation will begin soon, the negotiations have also exposed the challenges facing Aoun\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah\u00a0has rejected<\/a>\u00a0Lebanon\u2019s direct negotiations with Israel and efforts to strip the group of its arms, while Israel has insisted it will not fully withdraw unless Hezbollah is disarmed and demilitarised.<\/p>\n

Lebanon\u2019s government came to power on a reformist platform in early 2025, pledging to disarm all non-state groups, including Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

Lebanese troops later deployed across parts of southern Lebanon to collect Hezbollah weapons under a ceasefire agreement following the 2024 war.<\/p>\n

But those efforts were complicated after fighting flared again in March, when Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel in support of Iran, which was under attack by Israel and the US. This triggered another Israeli offensive in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Lebanon\u2019s government blames Hezbollah for dragging the country into another war with Israel, but it has also been critical of Israel\u2019s subsequent ground invasion and massive aerial campaign in the country.<\/p>\n

While grappling with strong political opposition from Hezbollah and its allies within the deeply divided country, Lebanon\u2019s leadership insists that Israeli withdrawal and international financial support for Lebanon\u2019s cash-strapped army are crucial for a sustainable security solution.<\/p>\n

Kaldas pointed out that in recent years, \u201cIsrael has consistently violated every ceasefire that the United States has mediated with Israel as a party,\u201d effectively undermining trust in the US\u2019s regional and international role.<\/p>\n

\u201cLebanon is a space where the United States can show decisively that it is capable and willing to make sure that Israel adheres to the agreements of the United States arbitrates and finalises,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019d be a great way to support the Lebanese people and the US\u2019 diplomatic effectiveness further afield.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Beirut correspondent Justin Salhani contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is in Washington, DC, seeking the backing of the United States for an Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[86,85,46,48084,88,47,43,1032],"class_list":["post-552698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-hezbollah","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-attacks-lebanon","tag-lebanon","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552698","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=552698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}