The U.S. raced Thursday to keep Israel’s war in Lebanon from derailing talks with Iran this weekend, with President Trump asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back attacks that were threatening a fragile cease-fire.
Israel said Thursday that it would begin direct negotiations with Lebanon after Trump delivered the stern message to Netanyahu in a phone call that a U.S. official said was shorter than their usual regular talks. Lebanese officials said they want talks that lead to a lasting peace but are first seeking an immediate pause in Israeli strikes that escalated in intensity after the Iran cease-fire was announced Wednesday.
Until now, the Trump administration hadn’t asked Israel to tone down any of its campaigns against Hezbollah, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that operates from Lebanon with Iranian support. But Trump was concerned that the fighting could undermine the cease-fire and efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. official said, as both Iran and cease-fire mediator Pakistan complained that Israel’s Lebanon war was a truce violation.
Trump told Netanyahu that he understood Israel’s need to defend itself against Hezbollah militants but also said that it should support the cease-fire by toning down attacks in Lebanon, the official said.
“At this stage, scaling back Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon is effectively a prerequisite for getting U.S.-Iran talks off the ground,” said Randa Slim, Middle East program director at the Stimson Center think tank.
Israel had been expanding its operations in Lebanon in recent days, with Defense Minister Israel Katz saying the Israeli military planned to take control of the Litani River, a strategic point about 20 miles away from the Israel-Lebanon border that Israel has long sought to push Hezbollah north of.
Those operations won’t stop, Israeli officials said. But a person familiar with Israel’s thinking said Israel would limit its attacks in accordance with Trump’s request.
“There is no ceasefire in Lebanon. We continue to strike Hezbollah with full force,” Netanyahu said.
Israel carried out a surprise assault on Lebanon Wednesday, hours after Trump had announced the cease-fire. Israel’s military launched around 100 nearly simultaneous strikes, killing more than 300 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry. A string of strikes destroyed residential buildings in neighborhoods that are outside of Hezbollah’s traditional domain and had largely been spared from the conflict.
Israel says it killed more than 200 militants in Wednesday’s strikes.
Trump and senior members of his team watched the escalation with concern ahead of peace talks with Iran in Islamabad on Saturday, U.S. officials said. While both Trump and Netanyahu maintain the Iran cease-fire doesn’t include the Lebanon conflict, the White House worried that Tehran could use the Israel-Lebanon fight as a cudgel to seek greater concessions from the U.S. to keep the cease-fire on track, or even walk away from Saturday’s planned talks in Islamabad, the officials said.
That fed into Trump’s decision to demand that Netanyahu lower the intensity of the Lebanon war, the officials said. “I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump said of the Lebanon conflict in a Thursday interview with NBC News.
The U.S. and Iran are heading into Saturday’s talks with widely divergent demands and differing messaging about the prospects of a lasting peace deal. Trump said he is hopeful that a deal could be struck. But on Thursday, new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a defiant letter that Iran would seek compensation for the damage caused during a five-week war with the U.S. and maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that carries a fifth of the world’s oil.
Yet, there are also reasons and room for each side to negotiate and compromise, analysts said at a Middle East Institute forum on Thursday.
From Tehran, “I’m sensing an overall willingness to negotiate, and that includes the hard-liners,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Washington-based institute who specializes in Iran.
On the U.S. side of the talks, Barbara Leaf, also a fellow at the Middle East Institute and former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said: “Time is not on the administration’s side, and I think the president is really digesting that now.”
Israel and Hezbollah have fought off and on since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by another Iran-backed, U.S.-designated terrorist group, Hamas. The current bout of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began shortly after the U.S. and Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
Direct talks between Israel and Lebanese government officials are tentatively scheduled for next week, and are expected to be mediated by the U.S., Arab government officials said. The initial discussions will be preparatory, setting guidelines for more formal cease-fire talks, these officials said.
Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, which don’t have formal diplomatic relations, present thorny issues. Hezbollah has long been a potent force in the country, with an armed force viewed as more powerful than Lebanon’s state military, and vast political influence.
Lebanon’s president and prime minister, who both came into power last year, have taken unprecedented measures to reduce Hezbollah’s sway in the country, including by backing disarmament efforts, passing legislation banning its military activities and centralizing control of entry points into the country.
But Hezbollah, Iran’s principal proxy in the region, has successfully resisted efforts to disarm it entirely. Lebanon’s inability to complete the job of shutting down Hezbollah has frustrated U.S. and Israeli officials.
The Lebanese government, handicapped by having one of the weakest armies in the region, has done little to force the issue when Hezbollah refuses to comply with its instructions; it fears sparking a civil war like those that afflicted the country from the 1970s to early 1990s.
Fighting in Lebanon in recent weeks has displaced more than one million people, and many began returning to their homes in the country’s south when the Iran cease-fire was called in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, local time.
Hours later, the Israeli military resumed strikes.
More than 1,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since March 2, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, which doesn’t say how many were combatants.
Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at omar.abdel-baqui@wsj.com, Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com