Lebanon to request end to attacks, Trump 'to attend' Lebanon-Israel talks
Tonight's second round of preparatory direct talks between Lebanon and Israel will be held at the White House instead of the State Department, Lebanese TV networks said.
The meeting is scheduled for 11:00 pm Beirut time (8:00 pm GMT).
MTV and Al-Arabiya later reported that U.S. President Donald Trump will attend the meeting.
Lebanon is seeking a one-month extension of a ceasefire set to expire at the end of this week.
Israel stated ahead of the talks that it has no "serious disagreements" with Lebanon, calling on it to "work together" against the pro-Iran Hezbollah, which is notably absent from and opposed to the negotiations.
During the meeting, Lebanon will request "to extend the ceasefire, which also includes a halt to the destruction of homes and attacks on civilians, places of worship, journalists, and the medical and educational sectors" according to President Joseph Aoun.
Aoun said he hoped to visit Washington and meet with Trump.
However, he said he never planned to have a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The two countries, officially at war for decades, held a meeting in Washington on April 14 -- the first of its kind since 1993 -- in an attempt to end the more than six-week war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The United States announced a 10-day truce shortly after the first meeting. It is set to expire Sunday.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 2,454 people and displaced one million since the start of the war, according to Lebanese authorities.
As in the previous round, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will bring together Israeli ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad, in the presence of the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa.
U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is now also expected to join the meeting, a State Department official told AFP.
- Strikes ahead of talks -
Israeli strikes killed five people in Lebanon on Wednesday and three on Thursday as Israel continues to hit what it says are Hezbollah targets despite the ceasefire.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency on Thursday reported an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle near Nabatieh, around 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of the border with Israel.
Under the truce terms, Israel says it reserves the right to act against "planned, imminent or ongoing attacks".
Hezbollah on its end claimed at least two attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it targeted a reconnaissance drone in retaliation for Israel's "ceasefire violations".
Lebanon's civil defense agency said an Israeli strike killed journalist Amal Khalil on Wednesday.
Before rescuers had found her body, Lebanon's state media said Israeli strikes had killed four people in the south and east of the country.
Khalil's employer, Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, said fellow journalist Zeinab Faraj was wounded.
Following the first round of talks, Lebanon and Israel had agreed to begin direct negotiations with a view to lasting peace, at a date and place to be determined later.
Lebanon has appointed Simon Karam, a seasoned diplomat and former ambassador to the U.S., to lead its delegation in these negotiations.
- Hezbollah not in talks -
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said "the obstacle to peace and normalization between the countries is one -- Hezbollah."
Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel on March 2 to avenge the U.S.-Israeli killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Israel has responded with massive air raids and an invasion of southern Lebanon.
Israeli forces remain in dozens of southern villages, behind what the army has called a "Yellow Line", described by the Israelis as a 10-kilometer (six-mile) deep "security zone" along the border in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah, for its part, said it had carried out an attack on northern Israel on Tuesday in response to Israel's "flagrant" violations of the ceasefire.
The truce had been demanded by Tehran as one of the conditions for resuming talks with Washington to end the regional Middle East war.
Trump announced on Wednesday an indefinite extension of the truce with Iran that has been in effect since April 8.
Source: Naharnet, Agence France Presse
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