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ARCHIVE - A woman who survived an Israeli airstrike waits to be rescued from a destroyed building in the center of Beirut. Photo: Emilio Morenatti/AP/dpa
Keystone
According to well-informed circles in Beirut, Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun is not prepared to have a direct telephone conversation with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the time being.
In a conversation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Aoun spoke about the possibility of such a telephone call, but has so far rejected it, the news agency DPA learned from Lebanese government circles.
A telephone call between Aoun and Netanyahu would be the first conversation of this kind in decades. The neighboring states of Israel and Lebanon are enemies and are officially in a state of war.
US President Donald Trump had announced a meeting between the "leaders" of the two neighboring countries for this Thursday, after their ambassadors met in Washington on Tuesday for the first direct political talks in decades. An Israeli minister was even more specific and announced a meeting between Netanyahu and Aoun on Thursday morning.
Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon are fighting each other again in the wake of the Iran war. The Lebanese government is not an active warring party and is trying to de-escalate the situation. At the same time, it severely reproaches Israel for the ongoing attacks in Lebanon, in which, according to official figures, more than 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Iran war at the end of February. Hezbollah has so far rejected talks between the government and Israel.
16.04.2026, 16:05
