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Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Tuesday that Hezbollah, not Lebanon itself, is the core problem between the two countries, as Israeli and Lebanese officials prepared to hold their first direct talks in decades in Washington.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, Saar said Israel was seeking “peace and normalization” with Lebanon and denied that the two countries had major disputes beyond Hezbollah.
“Israel and Lebanon don’t have any major disputes between them. The problem is Hezbollah,” Saar said at a news conference.
He added that the issue affecting Israel’s security was also affecting Lebanon’s sovereignty.
“The problem for Israel’s security is the problem for Lebanon’s sovereignty,” the minister said, adding that “the same problem” is Hezbollah.
Saar also raised the idea of working with the Lebanese government to dismantle Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah has also its financial roots, there are a lot of dimensions holding this organization, practically keeping Lebanon under Iranian occupation,” Saar said Tuesday.
He added that the Lebanese government itself viewed the Iran-backed militant group as “unlawful.”
His remarks came before talks that are expected to expose major differences between what Israel and Lebanon want from the negotiations.
The meeting in Washington, due later Tuesday, is set to be the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon since 1993.
The talks will be mediated by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and will include the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States.
According to the reports, the two sides are entering the meeting with sharply different goals.
Lebanese officials want a ceasefire, while Israeli officials have said they are not interested in a ceasefire and instead want the talks to focus on disarming Hezbollah as a necessary step toward a possible peace deal between the two countries.
The renewed conflict began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired missiles into northern Israel, according to the report.
Since then, about 2,088 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to figures from Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Another report said more than 2,000 people had been killed in Israeli attacks since early March and that more than one million people had been displaced.
The talks in Washington are taking place against that backdrop of continued fighting, rising casualties and deep disagreement over whether the immediate priority should be a ceasefire or Hezbollah’s disarmament.
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