Hezbollah Accepts US Ceasefire Proposal as Trump Claims Direct Call

Lebanon’s presidency confirmed on Sunday that Hezbollah accepted a US proposal calling for a reciprocal cessation of attacks, under which Israel would halt strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in exchange for Hezbollah refraining from attacks on Israel, according to Middle East Eye. The announcement came hours after President Donald Trump said he “had a very good call with Hezbollah” through what he described as “highly placed representatives,” claiming the conversation would end all shooting in Lebanon.

The developments mark the first time Hezbollah has formally accepted a US-brokered ceasefire framework since the current conflict escalated into a full ground and air campaign. But the agreement faces immediate obstacles: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Trump that Israeli forces will continue their offensive in southern Lebanon regardless of ceasefire discussions, and far-right coalition partner Itamar Ben Gvir publicly urged Netanyahu to reject American pressure entirely.

What the proposal contains

The ceasefire framework, as described by the Lebanese presidency, is built on a straightforward exchange: Hezbollah stops cross-border attacks on Israel, and Israel stops striking Beirut’s Dahieh district and other targets. The proposal does not appear to address the Israeli ground presence in southern Lebanon or the broader questions of Hezbollah disarmament and the Litani River withdrawal that have been central to UN Security Council Resolution 1701 since 2006.

The limited scope may be by design. A narrow ceasefire that halts the most visible violence — air strikes on a capital city and rocket attacks on Israeli territory — is easier to negotiate than a comprehensive settlement. It also sidesteps the questions about Israel’s ground campaign south of the Litani that have been the focus of European condemnation and the recent UN Security Council emergency session.

Trump’s claim of direct communication with Hezbollah is notable in itself. The US government designates Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization, and direct contact with the group’s leadership would represent a departure from decades of American policy that has routed all communication through intermediaries — typically the Lebanese government or France. Trump’s reference to “highly placed representatives” leaves ambiguity about whether the contact was with Hezbollah officials directly or with Lebanese political figures authorized to speak on the group’s behalf, such as Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Netanyahu rejects the premise

The Israeli response undercut the ceasefire announcement within hours. Netanyahu told Trump that Israel will continue military operations in southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire proposal, Middle East Monitor reported. The Israeli prime minister added that “if Hezbollah does not stop attacking, Israel will strike Beirut” — language that reframes the ceasefire as conditional on Hezbollah’s behavior while reserving Israel’s right to act unilaterally regardless of any agreement.

The statement is consistent with Netanyahu’s posture throughout the conflict. Earlier Sunday, he ordered strikes on Beirut’s Dahieh district and asked Washington to approve a wider air campaign against the Lebanese capital. Accepting a ceasefire framework that would halt those very strikes hours after requesting permission to expand them would represent a reversal that Netanyahu has shown no inclination to make.

Ben Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, went further. He said it was “time to say no to Trump,” urging Netanyahu to reject the ceasefire and unleash the full force of Israeli strikes. Ben Gvir’s position reflects the far-right flank of the governing coalition, which has consistently pushed for maximum military action in Lebanon and opposed any American-brokered de-escalation. While Ben Gvir does not set policy, his public defiance of the American president narrows the political space available for Netanyahu to accept the deal without fracturing his coalition.

Fighting continues on the ground

The ceasefire proposal landed against a backdrop of ongoing combat. Israeli drone and air strikes hit the town of Majdal in the Tyre district and Nabatieh al-Fawqa in southern Lebanon on Sunday, Middle East Eye reported. Separately, an Israeli soldier was killed and seven were wounded in fighting in southern Lebanon, a reminder that Hezbollah’s ground resistance continues to extract costs from the Israeli advance.

The continued strikes and casualties on both sides illustrate the gap between the diplomatic track and the military reality. Ceasefire proposals require a mechanism for implementation — a moment when both sides stop shooting simultaneously. With Israeli forces actively engaged in southern Lebanon and air operations continuing against targets across the country, the practical question of how to translate a political agreement into an operational ceasefire remains unanswered.

The Iran dimension

The Hezbollah ceasefire proposal intersects with the broader Iran-US diplomatic crisis. Earlier Sunday, Iran suspended its indirect message exchange with Washington over the Israeli strikes on Lebanon, linking the two fronts into a single negotiation. Trump, however, said that Iran talks are moving at a “rapid pace,” contradicting reports that Tehran had halted contacts.

The contradiction between Trump’s characterization and Iran’s stated position raises questions about whether back-channel communications are continuing outside the formal framework, or whether the two sides are operating on fundamentally different assessments of where the negotiations stand. Trump has a pattern of describing diplomatic situations in optimistic terms regardless of the counterparty’s public posture. But if the Iran track is genuinely alive, a Lebanon ceasefire could remove one of Tehran’s stated reasons for freezing communications.

Iran’s foreign minister declared earlier Sunday that any ceasefire with the US covers “all fronts, including Lebanon.” If Hezbollah — Iran’s most important regional proxy — has accepted a US ceasefire proposal, that could provide Tehran with cover to resume the broader diplomatic track without appearing to have backed down. Alternatively, if Israel rejects the ceasefire and intensifies strikes, Iran’s position that Washington cannot deliver on its commitments is reinforced.

The Hormuz factor

The Lebanon ceasefire maneuvering is playing out alongside the IRGC’s selective enforcement of Strait of Hormuz transit and Trump’s revised Iran deal terms. Each theater — Lebanon, the Gulf, the nuclear negotiations — is feeding into the others. A ceasefire in Lebanon would not resolve the Hormuz standoff or the nuclear question, but it would remove the most emotionally charged element from the crisis and reduce the number of fronts on which the administration is simultaneously managing escalation.

What to watch

The critical question is whether Israel treats the Hezbollah acceptance as a starting point for negotiation or as irrelevant to its operational plans. Netanyahu’s statement that operations will continue regardless suggests the latter, but diplomatic language often runs ahead of military decisions. If Washington applies genuine pressure — conditioning the wider Beirut air-campaign approval on ceasefire compliance, for example — the calculus could shift.

Second, the implementation mechanism. Even if both sides agree in principle, translating a ceasefire into coordinated action requires a monitoring framework, a timeline, and a defined geographic scope. None of these details have been publicly disclosed. Past Lebanon ceasefires have relied on UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces to monitor compliance, but the current conflict has strained both institutions to their limits.

Third, the coalition dynamics in Jerusalem. Ben Gvir’s “say no to Trump” statement is a pressure test. If other coalition partners echo it, Netanyahu’s room to accept any deal narrows further. If they remain silent, the far-right flank may be overruled by the security establishment’s assessment of the costs of continued operations.

The Hezbollah acceptance is a diplomatic fact. Whether it becomes a military reality depends on decisions that have not yet been made in Jerusalem and Washington.

---

For the Israeli strikes that preceded this ceasefire proposal, see Israel orders Beirut strikes, seeks US approval for wider air campaign. For the Iran communication freeze that the Lebanon front triggered, see Iran halts US message exchange over Israeli strikes on Lebanon. For the Hormuz and oil-market context, see IRGC permits 15 ships through Hormuz under selective transit regime and Trump sends Iran deal back for revisions as oil tops $94.