The three-week ceasefire agreed for Lebanon was not an arbitrary date but a firm deadline for Beirut to come up with a clear and achievable disarmament plan by May 17 otherwise the US would no longer restrain Israel, and the Saudis would not invest in the reconstruction of south Lebanon, according to diplomatic sources briefed on the talks.
A growing pressure is expected on Lebanese leaders to move beyond their differences and reach a unified plan that could be the precondition for any discussions of Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon, the sources told The New Arab .
There are currently three diplomatic tracks that impact Lebanon in the next few weeks. The US led negotiations with Israel, the Saudi-Egyptian initiative and the US-Iran talks . The US-led mediation is the riskier one with no clear road map yet, the Saudi-Egyptian is the most thorough with a medium-term approach , and the US-Iran talks are the most consequential yet volatile. The diplomatic sources said that there is “strong and high level” Saudi Egyptian coordination on Lebanon with “minor policy differences” between the two. For instance, Riyadh sought just three weeks of ceasefire extension to exert enough pressure on the Lebanese state to act swiftly while Cairo suggested a longer ceasefire based on Lebanese officials’ request.
The aim of this effort is to meet a US demand asking for an “urgent and achievable plan” as the Trump administration is basically dictating an agenda that Hezbollah disarmament plan must precede any talk about Israeli withdrawal. The three-week ceasefire aims to test if there is a viable path for Lebanese-Israeli negotiations. The US is constraining to an extent Israeli escalation in Lebanon. While the Saudi-Egyptian efforts aim to reach a degree of Lebanese consensus on a plan to disarm Hezbollah with a specific time frame. Diplomatic sources note that for now at least there is a tacit US understanding that a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel might not be a feasible option, hence there is a degree of US acceptance of “sustainable security arrangements” that include Hezbollah disarmament of some kind and Israeli withdrawal without signing a peace treaty.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have renewed their diplomacy on this matter based on the request of some Lebanese officials who were concerned that evoking the peace treaty could lead to internal tensions in Lebanon. Hence, the main foreign actors in Lebanon agree on Hezbollah disarmament but differ on their assessment and how best to achieve this objective. The US sees the Lebanon-Israel track as completely separate from the US-Iran talks, while the Saudi-Egyptian initiative sees the Lebanese track as separate but should be complemented by the regional track with Iran.
This matter is reinforced, according to diplomatic sources, by the idea that any US-Iran deal would mainly focus on the nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz , not Iranian crossborder influence that will be tackled separately in a regional context.
It should also be complemented by the Lebanese track, which requires the Lebanese state to reach a consensus between President Joseph Aoun , Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on how to move forward. Local media reported on Monday that the three are set to meet this week for the first time since Lebanon and Israel held the first round of negotiations in Washington.
Diplomatic sources affirm that the Lebanese state has a consequential period of three weeks ceasefire to come up with a clear and actionable disarmament plan that would be the base to proceed with the negotiations with Israel. Lebanon should decide the logistics and time frame of this plan: “What we are asking for is a solid plan not the disarmament of Hezbollah in three weeks”, explained the sources.
Riyadh is expecting that the Lebanese state takes the initiative and the lead in putting forward a national plan that goes beyond Hezbollah disarmament while stressing on the need to have the approval of Berri who is reportedly invited to Riyadh to hold meetings with high-level Saudi officials.
Diplomatic sources hinted that in return Saudis would invest in reconstruction of south Lebanon as main economic incentives and there are secondary and limited discussions about the need to implement the Taif Accord that ended the civil war, as political incentives to reassure the Shiites without opening the “Pandora box” of sectarian tensions such as the issue of eliminating political sectarianism. The diplomatic sources seem flexible about a disarmament timeline that does not extend beyond the two-years period of Parliament mandate renewal and subsequently the term of the current cabinet, and the plan should not include disarmament only but also a new electorate law, which has become now an imperative matter, as well as the necessary economic and fiscal reforms. The sources noted that Lebanon should seize the opportunity of the US and Saudi Arabia return to paying attention to the country, but warned that this is a “temporary return if the Lebanese state does not benefit from it” and added that the three Presidents in Lebanon need to overcome their differences and talk to each other “because if they do not agree on a plan, there is a big problem”.
All the Saudi-Egyptian-American focus and pressure is now on Berri rather than talking to Hezbollah directly. Moreover, the diplomatic sources noted that President Aoun pledged that once there is a ceasefire “the state will do its duty, he has now three weeks ceasefire to show what he can do”. The sources affirmed that the expectations in the next three weeks of ceasefire “the pace of Israeli strikes will be minimal as result of American pressure”. However, they emphasized that the issue of disarmament plan is a “given and a non-starter” and it is the “homework” of the Lebanese state in the next three weeks, noting that there is no American or Saudi concessions on this matter, hence “procrastination is dangerous here”. Diplomatic sources concluded by saying that Riyadh is dealing with Hezbollah “as if it was defeated” despite the party’s rhetoric to the contrary. Once the Lebanese state comes up with a disarmament plan, there is no clear approach yet on how the negotiations will proceed, whether step-by-step with Israeli withdrawal or another approach, but the starting point for any talks about Israeli withdrawal is a disarmament plan with a time frame and minimal Lebanese consensus.
There is a meeting in Washington between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by mid next month, around when the three weeks ceasefire come to a close, and diplomatic sources warned that if there is no disarmament plan by then, American and Saudi officials might “wash their hands of” Lebanon once again.