{"id":586179,"date":"2026-05-15T21:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/586179\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T21:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:32:09","slug":"israel-and-lebanon-agree-to-extend-ceasefire-us-state-department-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/586179\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel and Lebanon agree to extend ceasefire, US state department says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The state department said it would &#8220;reconvene the political track of negotiations&#8221; in June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;In addition, a security track will be launched at the Pentagon on May 29 with military delegations from both countries,&#8221; Pigott added. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Israel&#8217;s Ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, said the talks were &#8220;frank and constructive&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lebanon&#8217;s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that he hoped to &#8220;mobilise all Arab and international support to bolster our position in the negotiations&#8221; with Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There have been almost daily reports of Hezbollah and Israel trading fire across the southern border of Lebanon since the ceasefire began.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Israel has intensified its air and artillery strikes in recent days, particularly in southern Lebanon, saying it was targeting Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lebanon&#8217;s health ministry has accused Israel of targeting civilians and paramedics, which Israel denies. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Israeli military says it is aiming to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to thwart future Hezbollah attacks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In those areas, entire villages have been destroyed in similar tactics deployed by the Israeli military in Gaza. Human rights groups say some cases could amount to war crimes, which Israel denies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hezbollah has carried out its own attacks on Israeli troops in Lebanon and northern Israel with rockets and drones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Southern Lebanon is the heartland of the country&#8217;s Shia community, from which Hezbollah gets most of its support, and has been under constant Israeli bombardment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">More than one million people, amounting to one in five of the population, have been forced from their homes across Lebanon, most of them from the south, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahieh, areas where Hezbollah holds sway. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The conflict started on 2 March, two days after the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, and Israel responded with widespread air strikes and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At least 2,896 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, according to the health ministry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Israeli authorities say 18 soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state department said it would &#8220;reconvene the political track of negotiations&#8221; in June. &#8220;In addition, a security&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-586179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}