Israel and Lebanon Agree Ceasefire, Hezbollah Rejects It
Israel and Lebanon reached a conditional ceasefire in Washington, but Hezbollah rejected it the same day as Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon continued.
- Israel and Lebanon reached a conditional ceasefire in Washington on June 4, brokered by the United States.
- Hezbollah rejected the deal the same day through its leader Naim Qassem.
- The terms demand a full Hezbollah ceasefire and the withdrawal of its fighters from the south.
- Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon continue, with at least ten people killed.
The diplomatic channel that was opened in Washington with such difficulty closed almost the moment it began to work. The ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon, Yehiel Leiter and Nada Hamadeh, reached a conditional ceasefire on June 4 under United States mediation, only for the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah to reject the deal before the ink on the page had time to dry. For Serbia, which watches every flashpoint in the Middle East because of energy prices and migration pressure toward Europe, this is one more reminder of how fragile agreements in the region remain.
Talks held from June 3 to June 4 produced a framework that extends the previous truce by a further 45 days, with the next round of negotiations scheduled for June 22. The conditions set by Washington are clear: a full Hezbollah ceasefire, the withdrawal of its fighters from southern Lebanon, and the establishment of a pilot zone under the exclusive control of the Lebanese army. Those very points reveal where the fracture lies, because the Lebanese state and the armed group operating on its territory do not speak with one voice.
Why did Hezbollah reject a deal its own state signed?
The answer came from Naim Qassem, the leader of Hezbollah, in a televised message addressed to the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri. Qassem rejected the truce, openly calling into question the ability of official Beirut to speak for the whole country. The refusal narrowed the space for the multilateral framework Washington tried to impose, since an agreement that one of the key armed parties does not recognise can hardly halt the violence on the ground.
The gap between what was agreed at the table and what is happening in southern Lebanon remained stark. Israeli strikes on June 3 and 4 killed at least ten people, three of them in an attack on the town of Sohmor. While diplomats in Washington spoke of pilot zones and deadlines, the reality on the ground stayed marked by daily explosions.
What is Israel signalling while talks continue?
The Israeli side left no room for doubt. Defence Minister Israel Katz declared that military operations would not stop, regardless of the framework reached in Washington. With that, Israel made clear that the diplomatic process does not amount to a pause on the battlefield.
Israel retains the freedom of action to strike Beirut.
That sentence from Minister Katz, spoken while the ink on the conditional ceasefire was still fresh, best captures the logic of the moment. Israel negotiates and strikes at the same time, calculating that military pressure forces Hezbollah into concessions it is politically unwilling to accept. Lebanon is caught in the squeeze: its state signs, its strongest armed group refuses, and its towns burn.
For an observer in Belgrade, this outcome carries a familiar lesson about the worth of any agreement not signed by everyone who holds a weapon. The next round is set for June 22, but the open question goes to the heart of the matter: can a ceasefire survive if one side rejects it publicly, on camera, the very day it was agreed?
