Lebanese President Joseph Aoun will not speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for now, a Lebanese official told Fox News Digital, dealing a setback to U.S. efforts to broker direct contact between the two countries as fighting continues across southern Lebanon.
The development came after President Donald Trump said late Wednesday that the two leaders could speak for the first time in decades.
“We are trying to create a little breathing room,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that the leaders of Israel and Lebanon had not spoken in some 34 years and saying, “It will happen tomorrow.”
But Lebanese officials quickly pushed back. A senior Lebanese official told Fox News Digital that no call between Aoun and Netanyahu is likely before a ceasefire is reached.
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The official said there is mounting domestic pressure on Lebanon’s government not to deepen contacts with Israel while fighting continues, especially because many in Lebanon believe the government has already begun negotiations without receiving anything in return.
The lack of a ceasefire or any tangible concession has made public opinion increasingly important, he explained.
Three Lebanese officials told Reuters that Aoun has no plans to speak with Netanyahu in the near future. Two of the officials said Lebanon’s embassy in Washington conveyed that position to the Trump administration before Aoun held a phone call Thursday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In a brief statement after the call, Lebanon’s presidency said Aoun thanked Rubio for U.S. efforts to secure a ceasefire.
Shortly afterward, Lebanon’s presidency said Aoun also spoke by phone with Trump.
According to the Lebanese presidency official X account, Aoun thanked Trump for his efforts to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon and achieve what it described as a lasting peace and stability that could pave the way for a broader regional peace process.
The presidency said Aoun urged Trump to continue those efforts in order to stop the fighting as quickly as possible.
Trump, according to the Lebanese readout, voiced support for Aoun and Lebanon and said he remained committed to securing a ceasefire as soon as possible.
Lebanon has made clear it wants a ceasefire before any direct negotiations with Israel.
“A ceasefire is the natural entry point for direct negotiations,” Aoun said Thursday.
Aoun, who previously served as commander of Lebanon’s U.S.-backed armed forces before becoming president last year, said an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon would be a necessary first step before Lebanese troops could fully deploy to the border region.
The diplomatic dispute comes as the White House presses for a broader deal to end the regional war that erupted after Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group entered the conflict on March 2 in support of Tehran.
Hezbollah’s intervention opened a new front in Lebanon just 15 months after the last major Israel-Hezbollah war.
Pakistan, which helped mediate the April 8 ceasefire between Israel and Iran, said ending the fighting in Lebanon is essential to preserving that agreement.
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“Peace in Lebanon is essential for peace talks,” Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said.
The Israeli security cabinet met late Wednesday to discuss a possible ceasefire in Lebanon, according to Israeli media.
Israeli officials have signaled openness to negotiations, but they are also insisting on continuing military operations until Hezbollah is pushed away from the border.
Israeli Cabinet minister Gila Gamliel told Israeli media that Netanyahu had been expected to speak with Aoun “for the first time after so many years of no contact between the two countries.”
Israel and Lebanon remain formally at war and have had no direct leader-to-leader contact in decades.
The latest U.S. diplomatic push follows a rare meeting Tuesday in Washington between Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad and Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter.
Those talks, held at the State Department under U.S. mediation, marked the first face-to-face discussions between senior Israeli and Lebanese officials in more than three decades.
Still, the prospect of a direct call between Netanyahu and Aoun has run into strong opposition inside Lebanon.
Hezbollah, which has opposed any contact with Israel, remains publicly against negotiations.
At the same time, Lebanon’s government has increasingly distanced itself from Hezbollah since the terror group entered the war.
The Lebanese government formally banned Hezbollah’s military activities on March 2 and has spent the past year trying to disarm the Iranian-backed group without triggering a broader civil conflict.
Meanwhile, fighting intensified Thursday in southern Lebanon.
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Battles continued around the border town of Bint Jbeil, a longtime stronghold of Hezbollah — an Iran-backed terror group — that Israeli officials see as a key objective in the current offensive.
Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israeli forces were close to “overcoming” Hezbollah in Bint Jbeil.
The Israeli military’s immediate objective is to push Hezbollah farther from the border and prevent anti-tank missiles and other direct-fire weapons from threatening northern Israeli communities, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
He said Israeli troops are now holding what the military calls “defense lines” several kilometers inside Lebanon, positions designed to keep Hezbollah gunmen and anti-tank squads from once again overlooking Israeli towns.
“We’re going to make sure we keep diminishing them,” Shoshani said.
Lebanese security officials also said an Israeli airstrike destroyed the last remaining bridge over the Litani River leading into southern Lebanon.
The strike effectively cut off nearly a tenth of the country from the rest of Lebanon after earlier Israeli attacks destroyed other crossings.
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Israel has vowed to turn the area south of the Litani River into a “no-go zone” for Hezbollah.
Israeli military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Wednesday that Hezbollah operatives would no longer be allowed to operate south of the river.
The Litani River, which runs roughly 20 miles north of Israel’s border, has long been viewed by Israel as the line beyond which Hezbollah forces should not be allowed to operate.
Hezbollah responded Thursday with fresh rocket fire into northern Israel.
Warning sirens sounded in several Israeli communities, sending residents into bomb shelters. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
According to Lebanese authorities, more than 2,100 people have been killed in Lebanon since March 2 and more than 1.2 million have been displaced.
Israeli officials say Hezbollah attacks have killed two Israeli civilians and 13 Israeli soldiers during the same period.
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department, Lebanon’s embassy in Washington and the Israeli government for comment, but did not receive responses in time for publication.
Reuters contributed to this report.
