Published On 7/7/2026
Director of Al Jazeera’s office in Beirut, Mazen Ibrahim, said that official Lebanon believes that the framework agreement it reached with Israel is the best possible at the present time, and that this matter has become an end, indicating that Tel Aviv is trying to evade the implementation of the experimental areas and prevent the return of the Lebanese to the south until the completion of its next parliamentary elections.
Ibrahim quoted a Lebanese diplomatic source connected to all aspects of the Israeli-Lebanese negotiations as saying that the current challenges relate to security implementation steps, obligating Israel to do what it does in the experimental areas, and obtaining American guarantees to continue attending the negotiations if they are transferred to Rome.
He pointed out that the negotiations were transferred to Rome at an American request, because it is closer to both Lebanon and Israel, and it will be easy for the negotiating teams to move there whenever the need requires rapid consultations.
The diplomatic source confirmed that Israel was quick to accept transferring the negotiations to Italy in order to be freed from the pressure exerted on it by the American administration, especially Secretary of State Marco Rubio, noting that this is what prompted Tel Aviv to announce the holding of a round in Rome next week.
He explained that Israel intended this matter to block the path to Lebanon, which has not accepted until this moment to transfer the negotiations to Rome without American guarantees that the actual American presence will continue.
He stressed that the issue of the experimental areas “which Lebanon was able to seize will stop the systematic destruction and displacement that Israel has practiced during the past period.”
Israeli escape
He pointed out that the Lebanese negotiator sensed, during all the negotiating rounds that preceded the signing of the framework declaration, Tel Aviv’s intention to postpone work in the experimental areas until after the Israeli parliamentary elections.
The source stressed that Israel continues to evade American pressure to begin implementing the experimental zones, because it does not want to see tens of thousands of Lebanese return to southern Lebanon, because this represents a change in the landscape it wants.
He said that Lebanon is facing two main demands during the next two weeks, the first of which is to force Israel to implement everything related to the experimental areas, and the second is the visit that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun will make to Washington.
He explained that the drone bombardment carried out by Israel in the Nabatieh area is nothing but an attempt to prevent the return of residents to the south.
Regarding the item related to neither party going to sue the other before international courts, the Lebanese source said that Tel Aviv threatened to sue the Lebanese government before American courts, under the pretext that it hosts organizations that have carried out terrorist operations.
He said that there are those working to undermine Washington’s negotiating path, specifically Israel and Iran, which he accused of searching for special interests, stressing that the US State Department fully adopts the Lebanese point of view regarding the experimental areas.
The source did not rule out the existence of an American track related to the track as well, despite Washington’s confirmation of its adoption of Lebanon’s vision based on completely separating the two tracks.
