How can we understand the joint statement produced after the fourth trilateral meeting between the U.S., Lebanon and Israel? What do you see as the most concerning terms of the agreement to cease hostilities?

What is most astonishing about the document is its redefinition of the conflict itself.

The ceasefire it announces is made conditional not on Israel ending its aggression, withdrawing from occupied Lebanese territory, releasing prisoners, enabling the return of the displaced, or reconstruction in the South, but on “a complete cessation of Hizbollah fire” and the evacuation of resistance fighters from the South Litani sector.

Israel, by contrast, is assigned no reciprocal obligation whatsoever. There is no timeline for withdrawal, no condition requiring an end to Israeli strikes, and no accountability for the war crimes that preceded these talks. What is presented as a mutual cessation of hostilities is therefore a unilateral ultimatum framed as an agreement, one that grants Israel full freedom of movement to continue its aggression, and reserves its right to resume military operations whenever it determines that its conditions have not been met.

The center of gravity is, instead, Hezbollah, which is cast, not as a Lebanese resistance force confronting occupation, genocide, forced displacement, and aggression, but as Lebanon’s primary enemy. Although the claim that “Hezbollah is an enemy of Lebanon” is attributed to Marco Rubio, the decisive fact is that the Lebanese government signed a document containing those words while simultaneously declaring it has no hostile intent towards Israel.

This is not merely a discursive shift, but a major political turning point, insofar as Israel is relegated from enemy state to putative partner helping Lebanon rid itself of the “enemy within”: Hezbollah, and by extension, the people of the South, the Bekaa, and Dahieh.

This is not merely a discursive shift, but a major political turning point, insofar as Israel is relegated from enemy state to putative partner helping Lebanon rid itself of the “enemy within”: Hezbollah, and by extension, the people of the South, the Bekaa, and Dahieh.

By making Hezbollah the enemy, its entire constituency — the Shia community as a whole, around 93 percent of whom support the resistance — is also de-nationalized.

So the talks can not actually be called “negotiations” because Lebanon is not negotiating anything. They are a U.S.-Israeli-managed compliance process, with Hezbollah being the problem to be solved, while Israel is treated, not as a party to the conflict, but as the party entitled to decide whether or not Lebanon has complied, and to keep aggressing whenever it claims it has not.

The proposed “pilot zones” must, therefore, be viewed in this context. They are not mechanisms for restoring sovereignty, but a phased internal pacification program managed through the U.S.-Israeli framework, in which the Lebanese Armed Forces are positioned less as Lebanon’s sovereign military force than as an Israeli enforcement instrument — or in other words, occupation transferred into a Lebanese-administered security regime pre-set by Israel and the U.S.

Equally damning is Lebanon’s decision to join the condemnation of Iran and delinking itself from it, at the very moment when Tehran had made Lebanon a central condition of its own negotiations with Washington. Iran was not treating Lebanon as a peripheral file, but as a regional red line — suspending talks with the U.S. in response to Israel’s continued operations in Lebanon and Gaza, threatening the full closure of the Strait of Hormuz unless those attacks ceased, and warning that any Israeli strike on Beirut would trigger direct retaliation against Israel and risk reopening the war against Iran itself.

By signing onto the U.S.-Israeli framing of Iran as the destabilizing actor, the Lebanese government effectively stripped itself of the only counter-leverage available to it, endorsing the very framework designed to isolate that leverage, criminalize the resistance, and leave Lebanon negotiating alone under Israeli fire.

The government is committing not just to disarm Hezbollah, but to ensure that no resistance ever emerges again; in other words, to extinguish the resistance identity. This is similar to the first point in the Gaza plan which calls for “deradicalization” of Gaza.

The document also says “this includes the disarmament of non-state armed groups, and the prevention of their re-emergence.” This is a commitment by the government not merely to disarm Hezbollah, but to ensure that no resistance ever emerges again; in other words, to extinguish the resistance identity. This is similar to the first point in the Gaza plan which calls for “deradicalization” of Gaza. Here, too, the government is pledging to disinherit the entire legacy of resistance.

In short, what the government is doing, as Kassem Ghorayeb has astutely observed, is worse than surrender. Surrender would mean that the Lebanese authority acknowledges defeat, submits to the existing balance of power, and relinquishes its rights accordingly, without necessarily adopting the Israeli narrative that Lebanon is the aggressor and Israel the party aggressed against. But what the Lebanese authority is doing today goes far beyond surrender.

How does this moment compare to the period preceding the May 17 Agreement of 1983? And how does that agreement compare to the June 3 statement?

Obviously, there are similarities, but as egregious as the May 17 Agreement was, the documents we have seen emerge from these talks, including and especially, this last statement of intentions, are arguably far worse for Lebanon.

The May 17 Agreement was signed under conditions that could at least explain its existence on the most surface reading, even if this was not why the Gemayel government agreed to it. Israel had just invaded Lebanon, Beirut was under occupation, and the Lebanese state was negotiating with a gun to its head and an army inside its capital. The asymmetry in power and the agreement’s illegitimacy were so apparent that it collapsed within a year.

The current government enjoys none of these even apparent mitigating circumstances, and yet has gone further in every measurable respect. There is no Israeli army in Beirut and the Lebanese state is far from being militarily defeated. Hezbollah’s military capacity is not only reconstituting, but adapting, with its expanding use of FPVs and other drone and missile tactics already producing major tactical gains against Israeli ground forces, while Iran is negotiating with Washington from a position of regional strength and has made a Lebanese ceasefire a priority within those talks. In other words, Lebanon today possesses diplomatic leverage it has simply chosen not to use. This government therefore cannot claim the alibi of 1983 — that is the alibi of a state negotiating under direct occupation, with no political space, no strategic depth, and no available alternatives.

The May 17 Agreement itself, while shameful and a surrender document, was less catastrophic than this latest document, whereby Lebanon openly endorses the Israeli narrative, and aligns itself strategically with the U.S. and Israel.

But beyond the context, the May 17 Agreement itself, while shameful and a surrender document, was less catastrophic than this latest document, whereby Lebanon openly endorses the Israeli narrative, and aligns itself strategically with the U.S. and Israel.

Article 1, paragraph 3 and the Annex of the May 17 Agreement stated that “Israel undertakes to withdraw all its armed forces from Lebanon,” with the Annex specifying that “within 8 to 12 weeks of the entry into force of the present Agreement, all Israeli forces have been withdrawn from Lebanon.” This obligation — however bad-faith in intent, however conditional in practice — was written into the text as a named Israeli commitment. The June 3 statement contains not a single clause, phrase, or word concerning Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory. Israel does not undertake, commit, or even acknowledge any withdrawal obligation.

The May 17 Agreement was formally bilateral throughout: both parties undertook obligations, both parties were named as responsible for implementation. The June 3 ceasefire is explicitly asymmetrical from its opening operative sentence — “the ceasefire is contingent on a complete cessation of Hizbollah fire and the evacuation of all Hizbollah operatives from the South Litani Sector” — with no reciprocal condition whatsoever imposed on Israel. The ceasefire is not a mutual suspension of hostilities, but is an ultimatum addressed exclusively to one side.

The May 17 Agreement Annex also says this: “Three months after completion of the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Lebanon, the Security Arrangements Committee will conduct a full-scale review of the adequacy of the security arrangements delineated in this Annex in order to improve them,” whereas the April and June documents make even a ceasefire contingent on a Hezbollah withdrawal/disarmament, let alone withdrawal, which isn’t mentioned.

You have previously warned that Lebanon could slide into civil strife. What is your assessment today?

I see the prospect of civil strife as present as ever, especially if they try to remove [Commander of the Lebanese army] Rodolphe Haykal, or if he resigns. If that should happen, then the Israeli aggression will be only one level of warfare that will engulf Lebanon, and Hezbollah will also have to fight a “counterinsurgency” launched by the state, which will be fighting alongside Israel.

The other scenario is mass public pressure and protests and civil disobedience that will be overwhelmingly Shia, but will also include other sects to a lesser extent. This movement will seek to topple the government, either preceding or alongside the government’s counter-resistance campaign.

What do you believe is behind Hezbollah’s seeming reluctance to confront the government?

Hezbollah is very constrained by the need for stability, the main reason being the over 1.2 million displaced people, who are majority Shia. They’re Hezbollah’s Achilles heel. If there is going to be a popular protest, the party has left it as a last resort, given the ever-present dangers of sectarian strife — especially between the displaced and host communities, particularly aligned with right-wing groups who have been less welcoming of their presence.

I don’t know if you recall, but in his last speech, Sheikh Naim Qassem did threaten public grassroots mobilizations to topple the government. But that was regarding al-Qard al-Hassan.

So that kind of weapon is an option, but they’re leaving it as a last resort. They’re still sort of using Berri now as a bridge and are trying to solve it that way. That’s also why they haven’t left the government, which would be easier, if you think about it; it would be less messy than public protests. The Shia ministers have still not quit the cabinet, and that’s because of the chaos that they fear would come with that — because it would be chaos in the midst of Israeli aggression, which is the most explosive type of scenario that could happen. Otherwise, they know this government is shameless enough to replace any resigned Shia ministers with token ministers who will be aligned with the U.S. and Israel, and will not reflect the community’s political identity. But I would not rule out popular protests in the coming weeks, especially if the government is suicidal enough to try and enforce anything that’s on this agreement.

That also presupposes that there is no agreement between Iran and the U.S., which could still short-circuit everything else. But if that doesn’t happen, and if it drags on much longer, and if the government is emboldened by the very slow pace of the Iran-U.S. talks or the deadlock and actually tries to enact any of the items on the document we saw yesterday, then Hezbollah could potentially use that.

What I am more certain about is the popular aspect — that there very well would be popular protests to bring down the government. I think that could happen, but that would really be a last resort.

How do you imagine the negotiations would have unfolded had they been tied to the U.S.-Iran talks?

This is a good question. If the talks were indirect and under the aegis of the Iran talks, had the Lebanese government done this, the outcome could have been far less asymmetrical, and Lebanon would have been equipped with real leverage. Lebanon would not have entered the talks as an isolated, weak state negotiating under Israeli fire, but as one front within a wider regional equation in which Iran was already treating a Lebanese ceasefire as a condition of any broader settlement.

The U.S. would no longer have been free to dictate terms to a Lebanese government eager to comply; it would have needed to deliver those terms to Lebanon as part of what it owed Iran for cooperation on the nuclear file.

Israel, which could not block a deal embedded in a larger framework that Washington actively needs, would have faced a qualitatively different pressure than it faces when it is simply co-authoring the terms of a Lebanese submission. The question would have ceased to be what Lebanon could be persuaded to accept and instead would have been what Israel is forced to concede; so instead of accepting a ceasefire conditional on Hezbollah’s withdrawal while leaving Israeli occupation and giving Israel freedom of movement, Lebanon could have insisted on a comprehensive cessation of hostilities, and guarantees against renewed strikes as part of the regional bargain.

Given Hezbollah’s ability to inflict heavy losses on Israeli ground troops and forces across the border, particularly through its expanding use of FPV drones and other tactics, Israel would have been forced to withdraw as a precondition for an end to Hezbollah fire and the restoration of security in the north [had the Lebanon talks been tied to the U.S.-Iran negotiations].

This would also have made Israeli withdrawal the central focus of the agreement. Given Hezbollah’s ability to inflict heavy losses on Israeli ground troops and forces across the border, particularly through its expanding use of FPV drones and other tactics, Israel would have been forced to withdraw as a precondition for an end to Hezbollah fire and the restoration of security in the north. Under the current talks, by contrast, the government rewards Israel with an illusory promise to prevent the resistance from repelling the occupation, which in practice means bogging Hezbollah down in a civil war, while leaving Israel free to consolidate its annexation of South Lebanon.

None of this is to say that Israel would have easily withdrawn or that the war would have quickly ended, but it certainly wouldn’t have prevented the possibility of either aim being achieved as the current talks are doing now.

“When the bombing ended, even excavators couldn’t get in — they kept getting tangled in the wires,” said an eyewitness in Hay el-Sellom, a densely packed neighborhood where buildings are pressed tightly together and electrical wires crisscross overhead. 

Located in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hay el-Sellom had been considered relatively safe throughout the U.S.-Israeli war on Lebanon. It was not included in displacement orders issued by the Israeli military, so markets remained open and people continued moving throughout the area during the day.

The eyewitness, who runs a shop in the neighborhood, described the blast as deafening, with smoke quickly engulfing the streets. He put his 2-year-old child on a motorcycle and took him to safety before returning to help. What he found was widespread devastation: “rubble on top of rubble.” Several sites were struck at once: three buildings near the al-Ghadir River, one near the Arab Mosque, and another near Arweh Junction.

The strikes came hours after the United States and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire and the launch of negotiations in Islamabad on April 10. The 10-point plan presented by the Islamic Republic included a ceasefire in Lebanon as a precondition for negotiating with the U.S., raising cautious hope through much of the country.

That hope was shattered the next day, when the Israeli military launched a sweeping bombing campaign across the country, striking more than 100 locations in about 10 minutes, according to the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, including densely populated areas of Beirut. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later praised the speed and scale of the assault, which he called “Operation Eternal Darkness” and was widely reported as Lebanon’s “Black Wednesday.”

The Health Ministry initially reported 87 killed; by Friday, the toll rose to 357 as rescue teams and volunteers worked around the clock to recover bodies. At least 1,200 people were injured. 

In Beirut, strikes targeted Ain al-Mreisseh, Basta, Corniche al-Mazraa, Bashoura, Borj Abi Haidar, and Dahieh’s Chiyah neighborhood. In Ain al-Mreisseh, an airstrike leveled a building, killing 27 residents. A strike on a funeral procession in Shmustar in the Bekaa Valley killed 10 people. Three girls were martyred in Adloun in the South. A family of four was killed in the northeastern village of Mansoura, and four others were killed in a strike on the southeastern town of Majadel.

Videos spread quickly across news channels: cars crumpled into unrecognizable shapes, thick black smoke rising in columns, and white-gray dust coating every surface.

Not since the Zionist entity’s pager attack in September 2024 have medical workers in Lebanon seen such a sudden influx of people injured. 

Across the country, doctors, nurses, and paramedics — on and off duty — scrambled to respond. Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, chair of conflict medicine at the American University of Beirut, told Arab News that Israeli operations like Wednesday’s are designed to inflict mass casualties in a short time to overwhelm the healthcare system. 

“Buildings are being targeted to collapse on their inhabitants,” he said. “Many victims die from suffocation under the rubble.”

Yahya Obeid, an anesthesiologist at Makassed General Hospital in Beirut’s Mazra’a neighborhood, spoke to The Public Source by phone between surgeries on April 8.

“The situation is grim. The emergency room is jammed,” he said. “It’s chaos down there. There are too many patients to count.”

While many injuries were minor and could be treated in the ER, he added, a steady stream of critical cases requires surgery and intensive care. In Obeid’s operating room, staff moved patients from one procedure to the next.

“Vascular injuries, tendon damage, amputations, internal trauma — spleens, limbs, eyes, faces, brains,” he said, listing the cases they were handling.

At least seven children were treated in the pediatric ward. One child survived surgery, but another, a 13-year-old, was in a vegetative state.

Despite the strain, the hospital continued to function, largely due to off-duty staff who returned to assist. “Many staff are volunteering. It’s a full house: doctors across specialties, nurses, cleaners, and drivers,” he said. 

Healthcare workers with years of experience treating victims of one calamity after another were devastated by the conditions of those arriving at the hospital.

“We’ve seen so much [over the course of our careers] — severed limbs, organs torn apart. And still, some of my coworkers are breaking down crying,” he said. “It’s the shock of it, the scale of it... Tthe amount of grief, the injuries, the deaths. It’s overwhelming.”

Some of Lebanon’s hospitals may run out of life-saving trauma kits within days as supplies rapidly dwindle after mass casualties from the latest wave of Israeli strikes, the World Health Organization’s representative in Lebanon told Reuters on April 9. These kits, containing essentials such as bandages, antibiotics, and anesthetics, are critical for treating war-related injuries.

Anis Germani, a physician and health policy consultant, told The Public Source that Beirut’s major hospitals are already at capacity. Some smaller private hospitals have stopped admitting new patients, he said, because government reimbursements from the Health Ministry do not cover the full cost of care, prompting profit-driven facilities to restrict admissions.

Larger hospitals remain open but are already strained by years of political and economic crises.

In southern Lebanon, Germani said six hospitals have been put out of service by the war, though some have partially resumed operations, particularly in emergency departments. 

“Based on the 2024 war, hospitals in southern Lebanon proved more resilient than others,” he said. But the latest assault has stretched response capacity to its limits. While the country does not lack paramedics, he added, the intensity and geographic spread of the attacks have left them spread thin.

And then there are the bodies still trapped beneath the rubble. 

As of Monday, the Disaster Risk Management Unit reported eight people still missing in Beirut, including one child, and that 21 victims were recently identified by families or hospitals. 

Saad Ahmar, head of the South Metn coastal region at the Lebanese Civil Defense, told The Public Source that most of the bodies they recovered were women and children, including one building where six children under age 10 were pulled from the rubble.

Rescue operations remain dangerous, as Israel has repeatedly targeted first responders in “double-tap” strikes, where a second strike hits the same site after emergency teams arrive. Ahmar said crews are aware of the risk and often wait before entering strike sites, but safety is not guaranteed.

Since March 2, Israel has killed at least 88 medics, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

“What gives you the motivation to push is saving just one life — you feel you’ve achieved something,” Ahmar said. “All our volunteers and staff run to the site of the strike without fear, because their only goal is to help people and minimize damage.”

The search and rescue team ended its operations yesterday, with a total of 81 people found dead in Hay el-Sellom, according to Al Mayadeen.

The intensity of Israel’s bombardment on April 8 overwhelmed hospital morgues. Nearly a week later, they are still holding unidentified bodies and fragments of remains. In Beirut, Rafik Hariri University Hospital — the country’s largest public hospital — received most of the dead and wounded. Its director, Dr. Mohammad al-Zaatari, told The Public Source that several bodies in the morgue remain unidentified.

According to a security source at the Ministry of Interior, forensic laboratories have received 19 samples from hospitals across Beirut and the South. Preliminary testing has matched the samples to 12 individuals. The ministry has also received samples from four families seeking identification, though none of the cases has been definitively confirmed. The identification process takes 48 to 72 hours. 

“It’s expensive, but it’s manageable,” the ministry source said. “It’s part of what we do, as during the explosion at the Beirut Port and the last war.”

Families with no word on missing relatives arrive at Rafik Hariri University Hospital searching for answers. If their loved one is not among the injured patients, they are taken to the morgue, Zaatari explained, where they search through burned, disfigured, or dismembered remains for recognizable features. 

“It makes you want to cry, or hit your head against the wall, or just scream in anger because the scene is so difficult,” Ahmar, from the Civil Defense, said referring to targeted sites. “The scenes are extremely harsh — a crime in every sense of the word.” 

On Friday, March 13, as part of the psychological warfare Israel is waging against Lebanon, Israeli occupation forces dropped leaflets over Beirut, including the neighborhoods of Hamra, Verdun, Mar Elias, and Barbour, calling on residents to disarm Hezbollah. The leaflets implicitly warn that so-called evacuation notices — which are in effect forced displacement orders — and bombardment will follow if the group is not disarmed, and urge residents to share intelligence with Israel through scannable QR codes.

“If you want to be part of real change and contribute to the prosperity and protection of your country, we are here to listen,” the leaflet reads, followed by two QR codes.

The leaflets also feature a mock newspaper design on the back, titled “The New Reality,” claiming it has reached Beirut after “resounding success” in Gaza, with the headline: “Where is our country heading?”

The front of the leaflets claims that Unit 504, an Israeli military intelligence unit, is working to “ensure Lebanon’s future,” and asks Lebanese citizens to join the effort by scanning a QR code. Unit 504, formally known as the Human Intelligence Division, conducts clandestine operations and has been repeatedly accused of torturing prisoners of war. It is also tasked with recruiting collaborators.

While Israel has historically dropped leaflets over different parts of Lebanon, threatening Hezbollah or warning towns and villages to evacuate, this is the first time such leaflets have been dropped over Beirut since the war was renewed on March 2.

Israeli occupation forces first dropped leaflets over Lebanon after the 1982 invasion, warning civilians against aiding the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and, later, against aiding the growing Lebanese resistance. The leaflets also ordered the PLO and the Syrian army to leave Beirut along designated routes. In 1996, during the 16-day May War, the settler-colony dropped leaflets over dozens of villages in south Lebanon, warning residents to evacuate ahead of attacks and causing the displacement of about 400,000 people. In 2005, Israel dropped leaflets over the southern city of Sour in an attempt to stir discontent against Hezbollah and the Iranian and Syrian governments. Throughout the 2006 war, the Israeli military dropped many different leaflets on a near-daily basis, issuing displacement orders and using racist caricatures that depicted former Hezbollah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as a puppet, a genie, and a snake.

During Israel’s last war on Lebanon from 2023 to 2024, occupation forces also dropped leaflets ordering evacuations and inciting against Hezbollah. And as technology has evolved, so have the methods Israel uses to reach the Lebanese public. The 2006 war marked the first time Israel created a website to spread similar messaging, calling on people to share intelligence about Hezbollah in exchange for money.

The Israeli military has also expanded its use of drones beyond surveillance and bombardment to include psychological warfare, using them to deliver audio warnings and threats.

The QR codes and links on the leaflets should be treated with extreme caution. Such codes can direct users to websites that collect personal information or location data, or install malicious software for surveillance.

“People should avoid scanning QR codes found on military pamphlets or sent through messages coming from Israel since they may lead to websites that collect information like IP addresses, phone data, or location,” says Mohamad Najem, executive director of digital rights organization SMEX, in a message to The Public Source. He adds that such links could “expose users to malicious downloads, tracking tools, or targeted messaging.”

Najem explains QR codes can conceal the destination website, making it difficult to verify who operates it, what data it collects, and how the data may be used. For online security, “people should treat the QR code as untrustworthy and avoid interacting with it,” he says.

After the Israeli military dropped the leaflets, the Lebanese army issued a statement warning the public against scanning the QR codes or clicking on any links, saying the material “carries legal and security risks.”

These leaflets mark the latest attempt by Israeli occupation forces to cultivate human intelligence inside the country, increasingly through digital channels. Under Lebanese law, communicating with or providing information to Israel is a criminal offense.