The Lebanese file is entering a more complex phase in which neither a political nor a military settlement appears imminent. The process launched with the “Framework Agreement” on June 26 has lost a significant part of its momentum, while U.S. priorities have gradually shifted from seeking a rapid settlement in southern Lebanon toward managing the broader regional escalation, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandab, and the Iran file. Israel, meanwhile, is taking advantage of insufficient international pressure and Lebanon’s declining priority to expand its operational latitude and impose new security realities that could later be converted into negotiating leverage.

Lebanon’s core problem is no longer confined to implementing an agreement or setting a date for a new round of negotiations. The impasse is deeper: Israel links its withdrawal to Hezbollah’s disarmament, while the Lebanese state still lacks the political and military tools required to address this issue rapidly and without creating internal risks. At the same time, Hezbollah’s weapons are no longer capable, based on the realities outlined in this assessment, of forcing an Israeli withdrawal or preventing Israel from altering lines of control. The result is a vacuum between a weak negotiating track and declining deterrence, which Israel is exploiting to consolidate new facts on the ground.

Accordingly, the coming months appear more likely to be a period of prolonged crisis management and the gradual imposition of facts on the ground than a phase leading to a final settlement. The most important question for Beirut is whether the state and the army will receive the time and support needed to gradually expand their control, or whether Israel will exploit the slow pace of the Lebanese process to enlarge its security zone and tie any future withdrawal to tougher political and security conditions.

First: From Settlement to Managing the Stalemate

The announcement of the “Framework Agreement” in Washington marked the starting point of a process that was supposed to combine the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty, addressing Hezbollah’s weapons, and Israel’s withdrawal to the border. Yet the process lost momentum in less than three months. The postponement of the eighth round of the Rome negotiations, the absence of new negotiating material, and the reduction of contacts to an anticipated meeting between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors in Washington all indicate that the negotiations have entered a phase of stalemate rather than moving closer to a settlement.

The main problem is not technical and is not related to the scheduling of meetings. It lies in the absence of agreement over the basic terms of the trade-off. Israel shows no willingness to withdraw without tangible progress on Hezbollah’s weapons, while Lebanon maintains that addressing the weapons issue must be linked to an Israeli withdrawal and to security and sovereignty guarantees. Between these two positions, Washington does not currently appear prepared to exert sufficient political pressure to force Israel to make a territorial concession.

The meeting between the two ambassadors in Washington should therefore be viewed primarily as a mechanism for keeping the negotiating channel open rather than as a venue capable, on its own, of producing a breakthrough. Its value lies in preventing the complete closure of the process and preparing the ground for a later round should regional circumstances change.

Second: Why Has Lebanon Declined as a U.S. Priority?

One of the most consequential shifts is the movement of the U.S. center of gravity toward threats related to maritime corridors, energy security, and Iran. Priority is focused on the Strait of Hormuz and then Bab al-Mandab, given the impact that disruption in either passage would have on energy markets, trade, and U.S. allies. By comparison, southern Lebanon does not currently pose a comparable threat to direct U.S. economic and strategic interests.

This does not mean that Lebanon has dropped out of U.S. calculations. Rather, its function within those calculations has changed. Instead of being treated as a file that must be resolved independently and rapidly, Lebanon is becoming part of the broader management of confrontation with Iran and its regional network of influence.

Accordingly, the short-term U.S. priority may become preventing a major Lebanese explosion rather than necessarily imposing a final settlement: keeping escalation below a certain threshold, supporting state institutions and the Lebanese Armed Forces, maintaining the negotiating channel, and preventing Lebanon from becoming a front that drains U.S. attention at a time when Washington’s priorities are concentrated on more sensitive regional files.

Third: Israel and the Strategy of Politically Consolidating Facts on the Ground

Israel, by contrast, is benefiting from the time factor in a different way. It currently faces insufficient pressure to compel a rapid withdrawal and can therefore use military operations, redeployments, and territorial advances to improve its negotiating position.

The case of the Ali al-Taher heights illustrates this approach. Leaks suggesting a possible withdrawal or redeployment were followed by an Israeli position treating the area as part of the security space under Israeli control. This pattern demonstrates the parallel use of military force and political leaks: keeping the Lebanese side waiting for a possible initiative or withdrawal while facts on the ground continue to change.

The assessment is that the Israeli objective goes beyond responding to a direct military threat at a specific geographic point. The broader direction is toward creating sustainable and negotiable security depth, turning positions under Israeli control into bargaining chips that could later be relinquished in exchange for broader security or political arrangements.

This is where the danger of a gradual Israeli shift in pressure from south of the Litani River toward the weapons issue north of the Litani becomes particularly significant. If this condition becomes a fixed item on the agenda of future negotiations, the dispute will move from a question of borders and occupation to one directly connected to the internal balance of power within the Lebanese system.

Fourth: The Lebanese Armed Forces at the Center of a Highly Sensitive Equation

The Lebanese Armed Forces are the institution likely to face the greatest pressure in the next phase. Israel is seeking to cast doubt on the army’s ability or willingness to implement the state monopoly over arms and is advancing an equation whereby the army’s failure to do so would provide Israel with justification for continuing its military operations.

This equation creates a double risk for the Lebanese state. If the army moves rapidly and by force against Hezbollah, the risk of internal confrontation rises and the military institution could be drawn into an intra-Lebanese conflict. If it refrains from doing so or adopts a gradual approach, Israel can use that pace to justify the continuation of its occupation and military operations.

Support for the army therefore becomes more than a question of equipment and financing. The key issue, internationally and domestically, is defining the political function of that support: is the objective to enable the army to gradually expand state authority, or to tie assistance to a rapid timetable for disarmament?

The preparatory meeting in Paris will be an important indicator in this regard. The issue is not only the scale of international participation, but whether assistance will come through a relatively unconditional support track or through a formula linking funding to specific field measures on the weapons file.

Fifth: The Interconnection between Lebanon, Syria, and Regional Geography

Developments in Lebanon cannot be fully separated from Syria. From the Israeli perspective, the two countries fall within a single security space, particularly in southern Syria and the areas adjacent to Lebanon.

The assessment points to continued Israeli pressure in Suwayda, alongside attempts to expand security influence and link the Israeli presence to the protection of the Druze community. It also refers to proposals involving employment, services, and security points, in a context that could deepen the province’s economic and security separation from the Syrian center.

For Lebanon, the significance lies in the possibility of an interconnected security space emerging from southern Syria toward areas close to the Lebanese border. If this coincides with an expansion of the security zone in southern Lebanon, Tel Aviv would have established a new security reality on both sides of the Lebanese-Syrian border.

However, discussion of a comprehensive partition project or the establishment of sectarian entities should be treated as an assessment or scenario rather than as an established fact. The more observable reality is that Israel benefits from internal Lebanese and Syrian divisions and uses them to reduce the ability of both central governments to impose full sovereignty in border areas.

Sixth: Regional Corridors Enter the Lebanese Equation

Lebanon, together with Syria, is gaining additional importance within the broader competition over trade corridors and energy routes. Disruption in Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab is pushing regional states to consider alternative routes, increasing the strategic value of the Levant’s overland geography.

Israel appears to be seeking to capitalize on its location and infrastructure by presenting itself as part of the possible alternatives for Gulf energy and trade flows toward the Mediterranean and Europe, while closely following developments in Yemen and the Red Sea.

If disruption of maritime corridors continues, competition will no longer be limited to security. It will extend to transport lines, energy routes, ports, and overland corridors. Syria and Lebanon would then become part of a broader economic-security map rather than merely two arenas of confrontation between Israel and Iran’s regional axis.

Seventh: Lebanon’s Domestic Arena Becomes an Additional Pressure Front

Alongside external pressures, Lebanon is entering a delicate political and social phase. The economic and livelihood crisis continues, while the country remains divided over Hezbollah’s weapons, the role of the army, and how to deal with Israel. The accumulation of economic, political, and social crises could increase the risk of domestic unrest that various actors may seek to exploit politically.

Parliamentary sessions and the budget debate are likely, in this context, to become a political test of the government rather than a purely financial discussion. Opponents of the government will use the economic crisis to demonstrate its inability to manage the state, while supporters of its approach will link the absence of economic stability to the continued presence of weapons outside state authority.

It is unlikely that bringing down the government is the immediate objective, because a governmental vacuum at this stage does not serve the interests of the main external actors. However, increasing pressure on the government could weaken it politically and force it to rearrange its priorities and internal balances.

Possible Scenarios

Scenario One: Prolonged Crisis Management

Negotiations remain active without a substantive breakthrough. Washington keeps communication channels open without exerting decisive pressure, while Israel continues limited operations and consolidates security zones. The Lebanese Armed Forces, meanwhile, work to gradually expand their deployment while avoiding internal confrontation.

This scenario allows all sides to postpone difficult decisions, but it carries a central risk: temporary Israeli realities could, over time, harden into facts that become difficult to reverse.

Scenario Two: A Regional Settlement Reflected in Lebanon

If genuine progress occurs in U.S.-Iranian negotiations and the Hormuz and Yemen fronts de-escalate, Lebanon could be reintegrated into a broader negotiating package. Pressure on Hezbollah could then increase to accept a gradual process for bringing arms under state authority in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal, stronger support for the Lebanese Armed Forces, and long-term security arrangements. This scenario remains possible, but it depends largely on factors beyond Beirut’s direct ability to influence.

Scenario Three: Expansion of the Israeli Security Zone

If the regional track fails and escalation with Iran and its allies continues, Israel could exploit the stalemate to expand its operations in southern Lebanon and potentially increase pressure on areas north of the Litani. The risk of this scenario would rise if Israel concludes that the Lebanese state is unable to deliver results on the weapons file.

Scenario Four: The Crisis Moves Inward

The most sensitive risk is the convergence of Israeli military pressure with growing Lebanese polarization over weapons and the economic crisis. In that case, confrontation could move from the border into state institutions and the street, giving Israel greater scope to benefit from Lebanon’s internal weakness without requiring a large-scale military operation.

Indicators to Watch

Over the coming weeks, several indicators will help determine the direction of the crisis: the level of U.S. and Saudi participation and financial commitments in the Paris track for supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces; the substance of the meeting between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors in Washington; whether the condition of addressing weapons north of the Litani formally enters the agenda of the eighth round; the nature of Israeli moves following Ali al-Taher; the actual level of U.S. pressure on Israel regarding withdrawal; developments in U.S.-Iranian negotiations; and the trajectory of escalation in Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab.

Particular attention should be paid to any shift from general Israeli rhetoric on weapons to specific geographic demands placed on the Lebanese Armed Forces north of the Litani. Such a development would indicate that negotiations are moving into a new phase that goes beyond implementing arrangements in the south and toward redefining Lebanon’s security order as a whole.

Assessment

The current picture points less toward an imminent settlement than toward a transitional phase in which the balance of power that will shape a future settlement is being determined.

Israel currently holds a field advantage and benefits from the time factor, giving it little incentive to make rapid concessions. Hezbollah faces a decline in its ability to translate its weapons into deterrence capable of preventing Israeli advances. The Lebanese state possesses international legitimacy and institutions, but it needs time, resources, and internal consensus to convert that legitimacy into effective control. The United States, meanwhile, is treating Lebanon within a broader regional picture in which Iran, energy security, and maritime corridors take precedence.

The central struggle in the next phase will therefore not be only over who controls a hill or a village in southern Lebanon, but over who can translate current realities into the political and security order that will govern the post-war phase.

The risk for Lebanon is that it enters such a settlement only after Israel has accumulated additional field leverage, while the Lebanese side has consumed valuable time in internal disputes over weapons, government, and the economy.

The available opportunity lies in using the interval before serious negotiations resume to build a different equation: strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces, expand the presence of the state, prevent domestic polarization from turning into confrontation, and link any progress on the weapons file to a clear and measurable path for Israeli withdrawal.

Accordingly, time is not neutral. Every period of stalemate without progress in state authority or negotiations gives Israel an additional opportunity to convert military superiority into geographic and security realities. Conversely, every tangible improvement in the ability of the army and the state to hold territory improves Lebanon’s ability to enter the next negotiating round from a less vulnerable position.

In this sense, the question that will determine the direction of the next phase is not whether the eighth round will take place in October or later, but rather: what Lebanon, and what southern Lebanon, will exist on the ground when serious negotiations actually begin?

Sources

1. Anadolu Agency – Text of the Framework Agreement

2. Asharq Al-Awsat – Israel Links Withdrawal from Lebanon to Hezbollah’s Disarmament: A Return to Reciprocal Conditions

3. Al Jazeera Net – Next Round of Israeli-Lebanese Negotiations Postponed to October

4. An-Nahar – Israeli Army Blows Up Tunnels at Ali al-Taher

5. Al-Modon – Map of the “Gray Line”: Re-engineering the Occupation of the South

6. Monte Carlo Doualiya – Paris Trilateral Retreat Brings Together Macron, Aoun and Abdullah ahead of the Conference to Support the Lebanese Army

7. An-Nahar – Syria Returns to the Energy Map: An Alternative Corridor Away from Hormuz?

8. Al-Akhbar – Government before Parliament: A Confidence Test without Withdrawing Confidence

9. Arabi Post – Paris Meeting on Lebanon: Sources Reveal a New Vision for the Army’s Role and the Future of Hezbollah’s Weapons North of the Litani