President Trump announced Thursday that the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will be extended by another three weeks, following an Oval Office meeting with the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors that was elevated at the last minute from a State Department sit-down to a White House gathering with the president himself.
"The Meeting went very well! The United States is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah. The Ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will be extended by THREE WEEKS," Trump wrote on Truth Social after the talks wrapped up.
Vice President Vance, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa were also in the room.
The two diplomatic tracks are officially separate, but Iran has repeatedly argued that ongoing Israeli operations in Lebanon amount to a violation of its own truce with the US. Washington and Israel push back on that, saying the US-Iran ceasefire does not extend to Israel's operations against Iran-backed Hezbollah, which they say are happening in the context of separate peace negotiations with the Lebanese government.
That prospect faces real obstacles, however. Lebanese officials say a trilateral meeting is a long shot as long as Israel continues to occupy around six percent of Lebanese territory and carry out strikes there despite the ceasefire being in place.
Trump was also caught off guard when reporters told him about a Lebanese law that bars any formal contacts with Israel. He looked surprised and said "we have to end that," before turning to Rubio and other officials in the room and asking them to work on getting the law cancelled. Doing that would be a politically complicated lift inside Lebanon.
Trump addressed the exchange with reporters afterward, saying Israel has every right to defend itself if it comes under fire during the ceasefire, but stressed it needs to do so "carefully".
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