Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has authorised direct negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible” aimed at disarming Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants and establishing relations between the neighbours.
The announcement could provide a potential boost to Middle East ceasefire efforts.
The two countries have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948, and Mr Netanyahu later stressed that there was no ceasefire between them.
In a video statement, the Israeli leader said Israel will keep striking Hezbollah until security is restored in northern Israel.
There was no immediate response from Lebanese authorities, but Israel-Lebanon negotiations were expected to begin next week at the US State Department in Washington, according to a US official and a person familiar with the plans.
The prospect of talks appeared to bolster the tentative ceasefire in the Iran war that has staggered under the weight of Israel’s bombardment of Beirut, Tehran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and uncertainty over whether planned peace talks can find common ground.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he was “very optimistic” about the prospects of reaching a peace deal, saying Iranian leaders are more amenable in private conversations than in their public statements.
Mr Netanyahu’s announcement came amid disagreement over whether the ceasefire deal included a pause in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and a day after Israel pounded Beirut with air strikes that resulted in the deadliest day in Lebanon since the war began on February 28.
Israel has fought multiple wars and launched several major invasions over the years, most recently sending in large numbers of troops last month in response to Hezbollah fire on Israel’s northern border communities.
The launch of direct peace talks is a significant achievement, though reaching a deal will be difficult after decades of hostilities, Hezbollah’s continued presence and longstanding disagreements over the exact route of their shared border.
The talks in Washington are expected to be handled on the American side by the US ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, and on the Israeli side by the Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, according to the person. It was not immediately clear who would represent Lebanon.
Axios first reported the timing and location of the talks.
After declaring victory with the ceasefire announcement, both Iran and the US appeared to apply pressure on each other.
Semiofficial news agencies in Iran suggested forces have mined the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for oil that Tehran has closed. President Trump warned that US forces would hit Iran harder than before if it did not fulfil the agreement.
Questions also remained over what will happen to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium at the heart of tensions, how and when normal traffic will resume through the strait, and what happens to Iran’s ability to launch future missile attacks and support armed proxies in the region.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a message on Telegram that the decision to accept a ceasefire was made unanimously by senior government leaders and approved by the supreme leader. He said the ceasefire “is not a sign of weakness but a way to solidify Iran’s proud victories”.
Despite the fragile and disputed nature of the ceasefire, it appeared to have halted weeks of missile and drone attacks by Iran on its Gulf Arab neighbours and Israel, with no new launches reported on Thursday. There were no reports of strikes by the US or Israel targeting Iran.
Update on UK operations in the Middle East, 8 April 2026. pic.twitter.com/2CmWTB0lSn
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 8, 2026
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, warned on Thursday that continued Israeli attacks on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon would bring “explicit costs and strong responses” in a social media post.
Mr Qalibaf has been discussed as a possible negotiator who could meet US vice president JD Vance this weekend in Islamabad. The White House has said Mr Vance would lead the delegation for talks starting on Saturday.
Iran had said Israel’s ongoing attacks on Hezbollah were violating the ceasefire agreement. Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump have said it was not.
Hours before opening the way for talks with Lebanon, Mr Netanyahu said Israel would continue striking Hezbollah “with force, precision and determination”.
Lebanon’s health ministry said more than 300 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded on Wednesday in Israeli strikes in central Beirut and other areas of Lebanon that Israel said targeted Hezbollah, which joined the war in support of Tehran.
Israel said on Thursday it killed an aide to Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, Ali Yusuf Harshi.
A New York-based think tank warned that the ceasefire “hovers on the verge of collapse ” following Israel’s strikes on Wednesday.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli strike overnight killed at least seven people in southern Lebanon.
Semiofficial news agencies in Iran published a chart on Thursday suggesting the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard put sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz during the war — a message that may be intended to pressure the United States.
The chart, released by the ISNA news agency and Tasnim, showed a large circle marked “danger zone” in Farsi over the route ships take through the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas once passed.
Only a trickle of ships have transited since the war began after several were attacked, and Iran threatened to hit any that it deemed connected to the US or Israel. Ships appeared to continue to avoid the strait even after the ceasefire.
The chart suggested that ships travel through waters closer to Iran’s mainland near Larak Island, a route that some ships were observed taking during the war. It was dated from February 28 until April 9, and it was unclear if the Guard had cleared any mines since then.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, told the BBC that his country will allow ships to pass through the strait in accordance with “international norms and international law” once the United States ends its “aggression” in the Middle East and Israel stops attacking Lebanon.
The head of the United Arab Emirates’ major oil company, Sultan al-Jaber, said some 230 ships loaded with oil were waiting to get through the strait and must be allowed “to navigate this corridor without condition”.
The strait’s de facto closure has caused oil prices to skyrocket — affecting the cost of fuel, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East. Oil prices fell on Wednesday on news of the ceasefire but climbed again as uncertainty over the deal grew.
The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was around 98 dollars on Thursday, up about 35% since the war began.
The fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes — which the US and Israel sought to eliminate in going to war — also remained unclear.
The US insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to build them. Iran insists its programme is peaceful.
Mr Trump said on Wednesday that the US would work with Iran to remove the uranium, buried in last year’s US and Israeli strikes, though Iran did not confirm that. In one version of the ceasefire deal that Iran published, it said it would be allowed to continue enrichment.
The chief of Iran’s nuclear agency, Mohammad Eslami, said on Thursday that protecting Tehran’s right to enrich uranium is “necessary” for any ceasefire talks.
