Over the past week, the status of the conflict in Lebanon has careered wildly between escalation and attempts at statecraft. On May 30, Israeli and Lebanese military delegations met at the Pentagon to prepare for a fourth round of diplomatic negotiations intended to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror organization and Iranian proxy. Just a day later, however, Israelis and Lebanese citizens experienced a grim sense of déjà vu when Israel Defense Forces soldiers raised the Israeli flag over Beaufort Castle, a twelfth-century fortress in southern Lebanon that is a painful symbol of the nearly two-decade Israeli occupation that ended in 2000 with no strategic gains. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the fortress’s recapture, declaring that “we returned to the Beaufort stronger than ever.” Then, a day after that, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he had brokered an agreement between Israel and Hezbollah to stop fighting.

Israel and Hezbollah have already interpreted Trump’s statement differently, and their sparring has not ceased. Recent history suggests the strategic whiplash will continue. In mid-April, following a third round of negotiations, Washington announced a 45‑day cease-fire extension in Lebanon. But after that announcement, the conflict persistently intensified. According to Alma, an Israeli nonprofit research center, in the week beginning on May 25, Hezbollah conducted 227 attacks on IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians using rockets, antitank fire, and drones—up from 161 attacks the week before, and spread over a wider area. Israeli northern communities have been under constant fire and tens of thousands have been displaced. The IDF, meanwhile, has been striking deeper into Lebanon and threatening to hit Beirut. Since mid-April, it has razed villages, killed (by its count) nearly 800 Hezbollah operatives and hundreds of Lebanese civilians, and deployed large teams from two military divisions to create an expanding buffer zone.Israeli leaders have been trying to hold both ends of the stick, simultaneously engaging in high-profile diplomacy while sustaining military operations. They hope they can satisfy a variety of constituencies at once: on the one hand, the Trump administration and European capitals eager for diplomacy, and on the other, Israelis anxious about their security (especially those who live in the north) and the small but politically influential Israeli extreme right, which wants territorial expansion. Israel will hold an election in the fall, and a failure to aggressively respond to Hezbollah would expose Netanyahu’s government to real risks. It promised Israelis total victory over Iran and its proxy militias, not compromise. Although there is no domestic political downside for Netanyahu in going along with the diplomatic track, there has been no upside to seriously committing to it, either.

Israel’s approach to Lebanon must also be understood in the context of the post–October 7 shift in the Israeli mindset. The risks of watching and waiting for a threat to accumulate simply appear to be too great. So Israel has shifted from prioritizing deterrence to an always‑on security doctrine that prioritizes so-called forward defense—seizing territory, creating buffer zones, and accepting constant military campaigning. The capture of Beaufort Castle, Netanyahu emphasized, was “a dramatic stage in the policy we are leading. We have broken the barrier of fear. We are taking the initiative [and] operating on all fronts—in Syria, in Gaza, in Lebanon.”

This display of confidence, however, masks mounting frustration. And if the current escalatory dynamic continues, that will squander a rare opening for Israel and Lebanon to achieve a shared strategic objective. They both want Hezbollah disarmed and Lebanon’s sovereignty restored; since Israel and the United States attacked Iran in late February, Hezbollah has only made it clearer that its ultimate allegiance is to Iran, not the Lebanese people. But disarming the militia requires patient, sequenced statecraft. Only the Lebanese state can legitimately and sustainably disarm the militia.

Israel cannot substitute firepower for legitimacy. It can, however, help shape the conditions that enable Beirut to reclaim its sovereignty. This week's negotiations must move more urgently, aiming to do much more than to extend the crumbling cease-fire and contain the conflict to southern Lebanon. Unless the talks enable a fundamentally different approach and produce discernible benefits for both Lebanese and Israelis, the renewal of full-on war will be inevitable—and the hope of permanently weakening Hezbollah and making peace will be extinguished.

Israel began planning a new campaign against Hezbollah in mid-to-late 2025. In November 2024, a cease-fire had ended the yearlong previous war, triggered when the Shiite militant group began firing on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. After several months, however, IDF intelligence assessed that Hezbollah had recovered some of its military capacity and could again pose a serious threat to Israel. The new Lebanese government that took office in February 2025 proposed an aspirational plan to disarm Hezbollah, but it had neither the capacity nor the political will to accomplish this enormous task within an acceptable time frame.

U.S. pressure and preparations for the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran sidelined Israel’s Lebanon plans. But soon after the campaign against Iran began, Israel initially believed that it had tricked Hezbollah into violating the cease-fire when the militia fired a salvo of rockets into northern Israel to avenge the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It may be truer, however, to say that Israel inadvertently fell into a trap. Throughout 2025, the country had benefited from what some Israeli analysts called a “luxury” cease-fire. It retained the freedom to preempt threats and maintained a military foothold in five points inside Lebanon, while Hezbollah refrained from acting. Israel was ready for Hezbollah to retaliate against Khamenei’s death and saw an opportunity to go on a broader offensive, assuming a manageable task........

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