Israel, Hezbollah trade blows as envoys meet in Washington

BEIRUT — Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire on Tuesday while Lebanese and Israeli envoys met in Washington for direct talks.

The meeting lasted all day on Tuesday, a CNN report said, citing an Israeli official.

US Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Needham and State Department Counselor Dan Holler reportedly led the talks on the US side on Tuesday.

"We are trying to view the Lebanon-Israeli talks as separate and distinct from Iran, and what Iran wants to do is mix it all together," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate hearing earlier on Tuesday.

Rubio also accused Iran of "trying to stymie any effort in which Israel and Lebanon can work together" and prolonging their negotiations.

He added, "Israel has no territorial claims in Lebanon. Hezbollah is the impediment."

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said on X that "progress continues on the political and security tracks" after the first day of talks ended. Another round was scheduled for Wednesday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called the talks, which are strongly opposed by Hezbollah, "the least costly choice for Lebanon".

Meanwhile, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported Israeli strikes, some of them deadly, on around 30 locations across the south on Tuesday.

The fighting came after US President Donald Trump declared on Monday that he had brokered a partial ceasefire deal, which the Lebanese embassy in Washington said would at first only cover Israeli attacks on Beirut and Hezbollah attacks on Israeli territory, before expanding in scope.

Israel has been fighting Hezbollah since the group dragged Lebanon into the wider Middle East conflict on March 2.

A senior Hezbollah official said on Tuesday that the group will not accept any partial ceasefire with Israel, rejecting the reported US-backed proposal demanding that Hezbollah halt attacks against northern Israel in exchange for Israel sparing Beirut's southern suburbs.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it had attacked Israeli troops in southern Lebanese lands they occupy, but had not claimed attacks in Israel.

The Israeli military said it intercepted two projectiles from Lebanon, without reporting any injuries.

On Wednesday and ahead of a second day of talks in Washington, Lebanese state media reported an Israeli strike near Beirut. The state-run National News Agency reported the targeting of a car on the Khaldeh-Naameh road, referring to an area at the southern entrance to the capital.

Meanwhile, a medical source in south Lebanon's Tyre told AFP that Israeli strikes near the coastal city on Wednesday killed six people, as Israel keeps up attacks on the country's south.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has written to UN Security Council members, stressing the need for a continued uniformed UN presence in Lebanon after the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, expires at year's end.

Guterres outlined three options to replace the 7,500-strong UNIFIL in a letter to the 15 members of the Security Council dated on Monday and seen by Reuters.

They ranged from a light presence with limited capabilities to a more robust force with broader monitoring and de-escalation capabilities, and from around 1,980 to 5,525 uniformed personnel members.

AGENCIES-XINHUA