Trump says Israel and Lebanon agree to temporary ceasefire

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, United States President Donald Trump says.

The truce will take effect at 5pm US East Coast time (21:00 GMT) on Thursday, Trump wrote on social media after speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

“These two Leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10 Day CEASEFIRE at 5 P.M. EST,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed the announcement in a post on X, describing the ceasefire as “a central Lebanese demand we have pursued since the first day of the war” and the primary goal of Tuesday’s meeting between Lebanese and Israeli officials in the US.

Lebanon was drawn into the US-Israeli war on Iran on March 2 when Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned Lebanese armed group, fired rockets at Israel in response to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed on February 28 in an Israeli strike on the opening day of the war on Iran.

Israeli forces responded with a ferocious campaign that has since killed more than 2,196 people in Lebanon and wounded thousands more. Israel has also issued forced evacuation orders covering roughly 15 percent of Lebanese territory.

The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said strikes have killed nine people across the southern district of Tyre over the past two days, including a paramedic.

Salam also offered prayers for those killed and expressed hope that the more than one million people forced from their homes by Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Lebanon would be able to return “as soon as possible”.

Trump said he would invite Netanyahu and Aoun to direct talks, saying both sides wanted to resolve their differences and he believed “that will happen quickly”.

He also said he had directed Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, to work towards a lasting settlement.

Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told AFP on Thursday that the group would respect the US-brokered ceasefire if Israeli attacks on its fighters fully stopped.

The ceasefire follows an intense week of diplomacy.

On Tuesday, Lebanese and Israeli envoys met in Washington, DC, in their countries’ first direct diplomatic contact in decades. The talks were hosted by Rubio.

Both sides described the talks as positive although Aoun refused to speak directly with Netanyahu, a government official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press news agency, adding that Washington “understands Lebanon’s position”.

Trump had sought to get both leaders on the phone together, Al Jazeera’s chief US correspondent, Alan Fisher, reported from the White House, but the Lebanese side declined to do so before any ceasefire was put in place.

Fisher said the ceasefire in Lebanon was a demand from Iran, which had communicated that it wanted a deal and could have agreed to one, but that the fighting there needed to stop first.

“If putting a little bit of pressure on the Lebanese and the Israelis brings that to fruition, Donald Trump saw the opportunity here and thought he would absolutely do that.”

Fisher said this ceasefire could open the opportunity for a broader agreement involving Iran.

A two-week US-Iran ceasefire – which the US and Israel said does not cover Lebanon – is due to expire on Wednesday, but a new round of negotiations is expected to be held in Pakistan.

Iran had made securing a Lebanon ceasefire a firm demand before any potential talks, and Tehran’s parliament speaker said halting the fighting there was “just as important” as ending the war with the US.

Hezbollah, however, is not party to the agreement and has rejected the diplomatic process outright. Its lawmakers called negotiations with Israel “wrong” and accused the Lebanese government of making damaging concessions.