Overview
- Lebanese President Joseph Aoun traveled to Athens on Monday to ask Greece to help ensure full implementation of the June US-mediated framework that aims to end hostilities by disarming Hezbollah, withdrawing Israeli forces from south Lebanon, and deploying the Lebanese army.
- Greece expressed political support for Lebanon's sovereignty and offered reconstruction and security assistance, but it signed a multibillion-dollar arms deal with Israel on the same day, raising questions about Athens' impartiality in pressing Israel.
- Hezbollah has rejected the framework because it lacks an Israeli withdrawal timetable and because Israeli strikes and demolitions have continued in southern Lebanon, a stance that keeps the deal stalled on the ground.
- Beirut is also pushing for a renewal of the UNIFIL UN peacekeeping mandate that ends this year, a move complicated by reported opposition from the United States and Israel and by fears of a security vacuum if international forces leave.
- Negotiators plan to resume US-mediated talks in September, and the outcome will determine whether the framework moves from paper to practice or whether continued violence and political splits deepen Lebanon's humanitarian crisis.