Hezbollah defiant in face of Israel-Lebanon ceasefire extension

BEIRUT — Hezbollah reacted with contempt to President Donald Trump’s announcement of a three-week extension of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, calling the truce “meaningless.” The Iran-backed militant group is still a powerful force in Lebanon, and concerns over the government’s ability to bring it under control have raised questions about the ceasefire’s long-term prospects.

Any Israeli operations in Lebanon give Hezbollah the right “to respond proportionately,” Ali Fayyad, a member of the Hezbollah faction in Lebanon’s parliament, said in a statement carried Friday by Hezbollah’s TV station Al Manar, adding that any deal that does not include an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory affirms the Lebanese people’s “right to resist the occupation.”

The 10-day ceasefire, which was due to expire on Sunday, has been only tenuously followed, with fewer but continued attacks by Israel and Hezbollah. So far, it appears that Hezbollah is abiding by the extension after launching rockets toward Israel as talks were underway Thursday. The Israel Defense Forces said it carried out strikes in Kherbet Selem and Touline in southern Lebanon on Friday, but there were no indications that Hezbollah had fired back.

Israel has said its sporadic bombing attacks are “self-defense” permitted under the ceasefire, and IDF troops occupying southern Lebanon have continued attacks against alleged militants and their infrastructure.

The talks have been a tough sell for Lebanese leaders, with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam meeting Friday with a Hezbollah ally, Speaker Nabih Berri, in what appeared to be an effort to garner support for the negotiations. The group has long opposed direct talks with Israel, with supporters gathering outside government headquarters on the eve of the first round of talks in mid-April calling for Salam’s ouster. But after the initial ceasefire, Hezbollah’s anger seemed to die down as many its supporters returned to their home after six weeks of displacement.

Mahmoud Qamati, vice president of Hezbollah’s Political Council, said in a statement Thursday before Trump’s announcement that the militant group rejected any direct negotiations with Israel and that it would not accept Israel’s carving out of a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, pledging to continue its operations “until complete liberation is achieved.”

The ceasefire’s extension came at Lebanon’s request. Trump and Vice President JD Vance joined the participants of the talks — Israel and Lebanon’s ambassadors to the United States, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and State Department Counselor Michael Needham — in the Oval Office, and Trump said he would invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to meet with him in future.

“I think it’s the beginning of … a wonderful thing, to get this worked out simultaneously with what we’re doing in Iran,” Trump said.

Lebanon’s ambassador to Washington, Nada Moawad, told reporters after the talks that “President Trump promised us that we will make Lebanon great again, and we hope that this shared vision between Lebanon and the United States will be realized.”

Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, described the talks as “productive” in a post on X. “Our goals remain clear: peace, prosperity, and security for our citizens from Iran and its terror proxies,” he said.

Lebanon’s inclusion in a ceasefire deal had been a key demand in Iran’s negotiations with the U.S., but Hezbollah has not been party to the negotiations.

Avichai Stern, mayor of the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, expressed skepticism over the ceasefire’s effect, saying: “What is happening right now is not truly a ceasefire. We are negotiating with the state of Lebanon, which is incapable of dismantling” Hezbollah. He also said he fears the extension would give the militant group time to rearm.

The three-week pause in fighting is designed to provide more time to work out a “permanent peace,” Rubio said Thursday. “What’s standing in the way is … a terrorist organization that operates within their national territory.”

The talks in Washington came amid a separately negotiated pause in fighting between the U.S. and Iran, with Iran maintaining its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. enforcing a naval blockade of Iranian ports. On Thursday, a third U.S. aircraft carrier and warships escorting it arrived in waters near Iran, while the U.S. intercepted the tanker Majestic X in the Indian Ocean, ramping up pressure on Tehran to surrender its nuclear program, reopen the strait and end the nearly two-month war.

In Pakistan, where a new round of talks between U.S. and Iranian delegations was postponed this week, a partial lockdown remained in effect for parts of the capital. Pakistani officials said that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was expected to arrive Friday night with a small delegation and that more talks are expected.

In a call with his Iranian counterpart on Friday, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar called for “sustained dialogue and engagement to address outstanding issues.”

Islamabad’s “red zone,” the area home to most government buildings, has been completely shut to civilian traffic for close to a week, as have a handful of main roads running through the capital. Public transit service — bus and metro lines — has also been suspended, dozens of shops forced to shutter and many government workers told to work from home.

Trump on Thursday sought to dispel any notion that he has grown impatient with that conflict. “For those people … that think that I am ‘anxious’ to end the War (if you would even call it that!) with Iran, please be advised that I am possibly the least pressured person ever to be in this position,” the president posted to his Truth Social platform. “I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t — The clock is ticking!”

Craw reported from London and Soroka from Tel Aviv. Shaiq Hussain and Susannah George in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.