Israeli minister says Netanyahu to speak with Lebanese President Aoun

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to speak by telephone with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday, according to an Israeli minister, as fighting rages between Israel and Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.

Gila Gamliel, Israel’s minister for innovation, science and technology, made the announcement on Israeli army radio on Thursday, hours after US President Donald Trump announced that “leaders” from both countries would hold talks.

The call on Thursday would be the first known telephone conversation between Netanyahu and Aoun. According to Trump, the talks would be the first Israeli and Lebanese leaders for 34 years.

However, sources in the Lebanese president’s office said they had no information regarding a conversation.

Trump said the aim was to create “a little breathing room” between the neighbouring countries, who held direct political talks in Washington on Tuesday for the first time in decades.

According to a statement from his office late on Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel had two central goals in the talks: “First, the disarming of Hezbollah, and second, a sustainable peace. Peace through strength.”

The Lebanese government, which is not a party to the conflict between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, is seeking a ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

The Israeli Security Cabinet was due to discuss a possible ceasefire the same evening, according to media reports, but the meeting ended without a decision, Axios reporter Barak Ravid wrote on X.

Netanyahu’s office said late on Wednesday that the prime minister had ordered the Israeli military to expand its “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu said the security zone would also be expanded eastward towards the slopes of Mount Hermon to better support Druze communities, which are seen as aligned with Israel.

The mountain range stretches along the Syrian-Lebanese border and reaches into the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Fighting between the Hezbollah militia and Israel resumed in early March following the start of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

While a two-week ceasefire is in force in Iran, attacks have continued in Lebanon, with Israel insisting the country is not covered by the ceasefire.