Lebanese President Joseph Aoun meets President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, capping a four-day visit to Washington that will test whether the US-brokered framework to end the war in southern Lebanon can actually deliver what it promises.
The meeting is the culmination of months of rare direct talks between Lebanon and Israel mediated by Washington. On June 26, the two sides announced a “framework agreement” calling for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon, the disarmament of Hezbollah, and steps toward an eventual peace agreement between two countries that have never held formal diplomatic ties and have been nominally at war for nearly 80 years.
Now comes the hard part: making it real.
The Israeli military said it “will adjust its force posture in one of the pilot areas in order to enable the Lebanese Armed Forces to carry out their mission.” A Lebanese army statement said it was preparing for Israel to withdraw from Zawtar al-Gharbieh and had begun deploying troops. But an Israeli military official, speaking anonymously, said the withdrawal had not yet begun.
The first “pilot zones”, Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar al-Gharbieh, officially began operations Monday. But only one of the three villages is actually under Israeli control. The State Department announced the launch without giving details on what it entailed. Neither Lebanon’s nor Israel’s militaries issued statements afterward. Neither was there much to announce: the Lebanese army is already present in two of the three villages.
Abed Ezzeldine, the mayor of Zawtar al-Gharbieh, told the Associated Press he is waiting for the military to confirm it is safe for residents to check their homes. “The villages are intertwined, so we don’t feel safe because the Israelis are present there, they’re on our borders and are not very far from us,” he said. His village is uninhabitable, houses leveled, roads bulldozed by Israeli forces.
Aoun met Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday. Rubio called the meeting “very positive” and warned that Lebanon will “never be fully at peace” as long as Hezbollah is not resolved. “How do you replace Hezbollah?” Rubio said. “You defeat and replace them with a government that is strong enough to be the sole force of arms in the country.”
The question hanging over the Trump meeting is whether the US can deliver on Israel’s withdrawal. Israeli officials have said they plan to keep forces long term in a “security zone” in southern Lebanon, language that contradicts the framework agreement’s promise of a full pullback. Aoun will need more than a photo op and a joint statement. He needs Trump to apply the pressure that makes Israeli withdrawal real.
The framework is ambitious on paper: Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah disarmament, eventual peace. But the pilot zones show the gap between ambition and execution. If the first handover is in villages Israel never occupied, the real test, territory Israel actually holds and intends to keep, has not been scheduled.