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Lebanese President Joseph Aoun will appeal to Donald Trump to make a United States-brokered plan to disarm Hezbollah work, get the Israeli military to withdraw from its positions in Lebanon, and dispel fears of a long-term occupation.
On Tuesday, Aoun will ask Trump to pressure Israel to implement a U.S.-brokered agreement in which Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops would be drawn down from “pilot zones” ahead of a wider withdrawal.
The U.S. State Department announced on Monday that pilot-zone operations had begun in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Froun and Srifa.
On Tuesday, Lebanese army troops began deploying in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh after Israeli forces withdrew from the area, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) said. It comes three weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 30: “We will not leave southern Lebanon until the threat has disappeared.” The Israeli military said Monday the “pilot zone” program had begun, but did not immediately confirm it had withdrawn forces from any areas.
Sami Halabi, director of the Beirut-based The Alternative Policy Institute, told Newsweek that the Trilateral Framework under which the plan takes place is set up for failure, for which the government in Beirut will be blamed. “Israel is operating in bad faith—they know full well that these mechanisms haven’t worked in the past,” he said.
However, Brigadier General (Res) Yossi Kuperwasser, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer, said all three signatories are interested in making the deal work, telling Newsweek, “we want to see them succeed.”
What Is the Trilateral Framework?
Announced on June 26, the framework has the professed aim of disarming the Tehran-backed militant group that fired at Israel on March 2 in support of Iran as it faced joint U.S. and Israeli attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government ordered an air and ground campaign in Lebanon, which has killed more than 4,300 people, according to the health ministry in Beirut. Israeli troops were deployed to a buffer zone along the border up to six miles into Lebanese territory, in some areas crossing the Litani River and reaching the outskirts of Nabatieh.
As hundreds of thousands remain displaced in southern Lebanon, Aoun believes Trump has the leverage to pressure Israel to withdraw and help Lebanon restore its sovereignty, Reuters reported, citing a Lebanese official.
However, following the unraveling of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to end the Iran war, which has embroiled Lebanon, questions remain over whether the U.S.-led deal can end Israel’s presence in Lebanon, which has been condemned by many as an occupation.
The framework envisages the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) gradually assuming security control and dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, leading to a phased Israeli withdrawal as security conditions are met and verified.
Key to this would be pilot zones, with initial areas in southern Lebanon used to test the process, with the LAF taking responsibility for security before wider implementation.
Last week, the LAF started deploying forces to Froun, Kfar Dounine, Qalaouiyeh, and additional areas in and around the “pilot zones” as part of the deal, Lebanese and Israeli media reported.
But Halabi from the Alternative Policy Institute said the LAF does not have resources to make the deal work. “Israel knows full well that the Lebanese Armed Forces are technically incapable of doing what they’ve been asked to do,” he said.
“This sets up the LAF to confront Hezbollah on behalf of Israel, or on the behalf of the United States, or on behalf of anybody else. What it’s basically saying is ‘you have to do the job as the state without the resources that you have.’
“And that would almost certainly lead to a breakup of the Lebanese armed forces (and) almost certainly lead to civil strife,” he said.
This would allow Israel to say Lebanon had not kept to its side of the deal.
“From Netanyahu’s perspective, a prolonged occupation of southern Lebanon is in his long-term interest and his short-term interest, especially if you speak electorally given the upcoming Israeli elections,” he added, referring to the ballot expected in October.
“A lot will depend on what happens in the Israeli elections and a lot also will happen on the realities of occupying a hostile nation,” said Halabi, adding from a security perspective, “an extended occupation of Lebanon is extremely problematic.”
Kuperwasser, the director of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), said the deal reflects the will of Beirut, Israel and the United States “to create a totally different situation in Lebanon, in which the monopoly over the use of force from its territory will come back to the government of Lebanon.”
Comparisons With Occupation That Ended in 2000
Israel has portrayed its presence in southern Lebanon as temporary and necessary to thwart the threat posed by Hezbollah, which the government in Beirut has been unable to control.
But critics said it had echoes of when Israel entered southern Lebanon in 1978 and then invaded more extensively four years later with the aim of stopping attacks by Palestinian militants operating from Lebanon.
Mireille Rebeiz, chair of Middle East Studies at Dickinson College, told Newsweek in May that there were differences in the duration and intensity of these operations.
“One of the major differences between the 1978 occupation and today’s ‘yellow line’ is the level of destruction wreaked by Israel in south Lebanon,” she said.
This refers to the other name given to the IDF presence—a term also used to describe the line dividing the Gaza Strip since a peace plan went into effect in October 2025.
The destruction of Palestinian territory following Israel’s war on Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attacks, and the displacement, has drawn comparisons with Lebanon’s current situation.
Satellite imagery released in April showed Israel had leveled at least 1,400 buildings after Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s order on 22 March to “accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes” near the border based on the “model in Gaza” in its campaign against Hezbollah.
The IDF has said it operates in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict and does not destroy property unless there is an imperative military necessity. The IDF also says that Hezbollah has embedded military infrastructure within civilian areas.
While Israel maintained a physical military presence in south Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, Rebeiz said, during that time, “it did not destroy entire villages.”
Michael Young, a senior editor at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told Newsweek last month that Israel would like to link any withdrawal from this area to the disarmament of Hezbollah.
“If there isn’t a disarmament of Hezbollah, then Israel will continue to hold this territory, as it did during the Lebanese Civil War up to the year 2000, which was also considered an occupation,” he said.
“I think the Israeli effort to raze villages is intended to make this area permanently, free of its own population. They would like to destroy the villages and only eventually allow a controlled return of some members of the population.”
When asked about whether Israel was occupying Lebanon, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Newsweek it “considers that Israel remains in control of certain areas in southern Lebanon, and so the law of occupation applies in those areas.”
However, Kupperwasser said: “It’s not an occupation in the sense that we have any intention to take over parts of Lebanon. We respect the sovereignty of Lebanon.”
“It’s temporary in the sense that once the Lebanese managed to regain control of the use of force from its territory, we are ready to redeploy,” he said, “but it has to be proven that they have managed to disarm Hezbollah.”
Aoun’s Plea for U.S. Help
When sworn in as president last year, Aoun, 62, a former LAF commander, pledged to disarm Hezbollah, which had been weakened after Israel’s 2024 offensive.
Following a ceasefire deal after which Lebanese troops collected weapons from an Iranian proxy, his policy has been complicated by the Iran war, which Aoun has accused Hezbollah of dragging Lebanon into.
Aoun will want assurances from Trump on how Israel’s presence in his country would end soon, the pilot schemes and what role the U.S. can play.
Despite Trump declaring as “over” the June 17 memorandum of understanding that demanded the conflict to end on all fronts in the Iran war, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, progress has been made between Israeli and Lebanese sides.
“This is a once in a generation diplomatic opportunity,” Zev Faintuch, head of research and intelligence at security firm Global Guardian, told Newsweek. “it’s hard to say if there’s going to be another Lebanese leader that’s going to be this amenable—and if Hezbollah is going to be this weak in the future.”
“I don’t think the situation in Lebanon, as far as Israel is concerned, is sustainable,” he said, ” it’s really in those parties’ best interests to continue the pilot program.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Frances Mao and Sam Wilson.
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