A US-brokered framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon, signed in Washington on 26 June, has been met with immediate rejection by Hezbollah and its political allies, while Israeli forces continued military operations in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah issued a statement on 29 June describing the deal as a surrender of sovereignty and declaring it null and void. Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, told the al-Akhbar newspaper that the agreement amounted to dictates and would not be implemented. The Israeli military, meanwhile, destroyed a 200-metre Hezbollah tunnel near Majdal Zoun and carried out airstrikes on Nabatieh and other locations, actions it said were in response to ceasefire violations.

The Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has characterised the framework as a historic achievement that deals a blow to Iran and Hezbollah. Defence Minister Israel Katz stated that Israeli forces would remain in a self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed. The Lebanese government, headed by President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, has welcomed the agreement as a first step toward restoring state sovereignty, though Aoun also urged US President Donald Trump to press Israel to withdraw. Lebanese Defence Minister Michel Menassa said the army would work to disarm all non-state armed groups, including Hezbollah, and expressed confidence in the military’s capacity. Hezbollah and the Amal movement, by contrast, insist that the only viable path to an Israeli withdrawal runs through the Iran-US negotiations, and they have warned that the deal risks provoking internal Lebanese strife.

The agreement’s central bargain—Israeli redeployment from pilot zones in exchange for verified disarmament of non-state groups—faces structural obstacles, according to analysts in Beirut and London. Hezbollah has flatly rejected disarmament, and the Lebanese Armed Forces are neither equipped nor politically positioned to enforce it against the country’s most powerful militia. Viewed from Beirut, the framework places all obligations on Lebanon while granting Israel political cover to maintain an open-ended military presence in the south. The Lebanese state, built on sectarian power-sharing, is thus caught between commitments it cannot fulfil and sovereignty it cannot fully reclaim, a dynamic that analysts warn could entrench a stalemate rather than resolve the conflict.

The war in Lebanon began on 2 March when Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel in solidarity with Iran, following US-Israeli strikes on Iranian territory. The conflict has since become intertwined with broader US-Iran diplomacy; Tehran has insisted that any interim deal with Washington include a ceasefire in Lebanon. The US, while brokering the separate Israel-Lebanon track, also agreed with Iran to establish a deconfliction cell for the Lebanese ceasefire, a move that Israeli and Lebanese officials reportedly viewed as legitimising Iranian influence. Talks between Israeli and Lebanese negotiators are scheduled to resume on Tuesday, but the framework’s implementation remains uncertain given Hezbollah’s rejection and the absence of a mechanism to enforce disarmament. The US continues to facilitate the process, while the parallel Iran-US track adds a layer of complexity to an already fragile dossier.