Hezbollah won't abide by any agreements from Lebanon-Israel talks

BEIRUT

Scooters pass posters showing Iran's slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Beirut's southern suburbs on April 13, 2026. AFP

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah will not abide by any agreements that may result from the direct Lebanon-Israel talks in the United States, negotiations it firmly opposes, a senior Hezbollah official has said.

Wafiq Safa, a high-ranking member of Hezbollah's political council, spoke on the eve of the talks expected in Washington between Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the U.S. It will be the first time in decades that envoys from Lebanon and Israel, which do not have diplomatic relations, meet face-to-face in direct talks.

“As for the outcomes of this negotiation between Lebanon and the Israeli enemy, we are not interested in or concerned with them at all," Safa told The Associated Press.

"We are not bound by what they agree to,” he added in a rare interview with international media. He spoke next to a cemetery as an Israeli drone buzzed overhead.

Lebanese officials are looking to broker a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war in the U.S. talks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, has said the goal is Hezbollah's disarmament and a potential peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel. Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Netanyahu said on April 13 that there will be no ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Separately, in U.S.-Iran peace talks held last weekend in Pakistan, Iran has sought to include Lebanon in any ceasefire deal of its own with the U.S. Israel and the U.S. have insisted Lebanon would not be a part of it.

Hours after Tehran and Washington announced a truce on April 8, Israel launched more than 100 strikes across Lebanon, including in densely packed residential and commercial areas of central Beirut.