On June 26, Israel and Lebanon signed the Trilateral Framework Between the United States, Israel, and Lebanon, whose goal is to end the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, secure both countries’ sovereignty and security, and establish peaceful relations.
Hezbollah rejected the deal outright, vowed continued “resistance,” and warned that enforcing the deal could push Lebanon toward a civil war. The Amal Movement, a major Lebanese political party and Hezbollah’s Shiite ally, denounced it as unbalanced, promising to obstruct the deal “in its current form.” Overall Lebanese reactions split between pro-Hezbollah opposition, sovereigntist conditional support, and the general public’s exhaustion, sectarian polarization, and skepticism over Israeli withdrawal and Hezbollah’s disarmament without a civil war. Israel’s government backed the deal as a conditional path to peace after Hezbollah’s disarmament, while opposition and northern Israeli residents warned that the framework left the danger of Hezbollah unresolved.
The following summarizes the 14 points of the Trilateral Framework Between the United States, Israel, and Lebanon’s full text and its Security Annex, organized by five themes:
Theme 1: The framework: ending rather than managing the conflict
Point 1: Israel and Lebanon affirm each other’s right to exist in peace and security, declare their “intent” to end their conflict and state of war by addressing its “underlying causes,” and commit to resolving future disputes through US-mediated diplomacy.
Point 1 seeks the termination of conflict, not ceasefire management. It requires Israel to affirm Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and, more significantly, Lebanon to recognize Israel’s existence and sovereign legitimacy. The framework’s phased language avoids triggering Lebanese opposition to “normalization” with Israel while preserving Lebanon’s pursuit of “peace”—mutual quiet without full relations—and avoiding the failed 1983 Israel-Lebanon Agreement, reached under Israeli occupation and seen in Lebanon as forced normalization.
The clause only implies that Hezbollah’s arsenal is a root cause of the conflict, suggesting the need for the group’s disarmament and avoiding a direct provocation of Lebanon’s largely pro-Hezbollah Shiite community. Point 1’s language also seeks to pull the file from Iran’s hands after Tehran created pressure for a Lebanon ceasefire to parallel the end of US-Iranian hostilities. Hezbollah and the Amal Movement have pushed a reliance on Iranian leverage, while Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have wavered between that position and insisting that Lebanon charts its own course.
Theme 2: The core security bargain
Point 2: Israel and Lebanon commit to a reciprocal, conditions-based phased withdrawal by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), synchronized with the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) gradual control of all Lebanese territory and verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and dismantlement of their infrastructure.
Point 3: The LAF will assume full security responsibility in mutually agreed pilot zones, enabling phased IDF redeployments. Once disarmament and dismantlement are verified, reconstruction begins, and civilians return under Lebanese state authority. The framework’s Security Annex adds:
a. First pilot zone: The initial South Litani pilot zone follows four military-planning steps:
- Clearing: destroy non-state armed groups’ weapons and infrastructure and take legal measures against personnel “engaging in unauthorized activity.”
- Verification: a mutually agreed third party verifies clearance.
- Maintenance: A “highly qualified” LAF assumes sole operational control to prevent resurgence.
- Reconstruction: Lebanon leads reconstruction, with international assistance.
b. Implementation and verification: The LAF will lead the security implementation, measured by verifiable disarmament and dismantlement. Israel and Lebanon will establish a 24/7 military coordination mechanism to manage deconfliction, verification, and implementation through indirect military channels, with verification “simultaneous with” clearing.
c. Security commitments: The LAF commits to disarming Hezbollah and all other non-state armed groups, ending any military role or capability.
d. Sequenced redeployment: Israel commits to a phased, conditions-based reduction in forces and their eventual full withdrawal from Lebanon, synchronized with the LAF’s deployment and disarmament verification.
e. Desired outcome: dismantling and disarming all non-state armed groups, restoring full Lebanese state authority throughout Lebanon, and ensuring Israel’s long-term security.
f. Oversight and disputes: With US facilitation, the parties will periodically review implementation, may mutually amend the Annex, and will resolve disputes trilaterally.
Points 2 and 3 are the framework’s core security bargain: Israel will withdraw incrementally as the LAF takes control and Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups are verifiably disarmed and dismantled in pilot zones. This approach seeks to correct prior failures, especially UN Resolution 1701 and the November 2024 truce, by conditioning IDF redeployment on actual Lebanese performance, not promises to later address Hezbollah’s arsenal. It fixes old sequencing but requires Lebanon to do what it remains unable or unwilling to do: restrain and disarm Hezbollah, rather than endlessly debate, ignore, or cover its arsenal.
A proscription of Hezbollah’s military activities by Beirut on March 2 gives the LAF political cover to implement this cluster’s terms. The Lebanese military, however, says that it lacks the capacity to disarm Hezbollah. However, more accurately, it lacks the social legitimacy and therefore the will to accomplish this goal. The LAF has repeatedly rejected confrontation with the group, citing domestic stability and unity. Hezbollah rejects disarmament and this linkage, preferring an unconditional Israeli withdrawal first, followed by a return to the interminable domestic “dialogue” that would allow the group to regenerate. The Amal Movement, led by Nabih Berri—the progenitor of this problematic sequencing—intends to block the implementation of the framework’s security measures.
The enactment of limited pilot zones is plausible, but likely only if the IDF clears Hezbollah’s presence and infrastructure before handing over territory, rather than making a demonstrably unwilling LAF primarily responsible for clashing with Hezbollah. The Lebanese military would then prevent any armed resurgence, including under civilian guises.
A major concern about the framework’s security provisions is that an unwilling or incapable LAF would be made primarily responsible. The agreement also leaves it unclear whether the verification occurs in real time or afterward based on the LAF’s claims, and it never defines whether “highly qualified” Lebanese military personnel means technically capable or also resistant to pressure by Hezbollah or sympathy with the group. The LAF’s record warrants skepticism: after claiming “effective control” south of the Litani River on January 8, 2026, Hezbollah still fought there after March 2. The IDF later reported significant Hezbollah installations, including a 200-meter underground site in Majdal Zoun, and has previously alleged that the Lebanese military cut deals with Hezbollah to document vacated sites as proof of performance.
Theme 3: Sovereign control and reciprocal security
Point 4: Lebanon irreversibly commits to restoring full sovereignty over the country, monopolizing force, and disarming all armed groups “[every]where in Lebanon,” with international and Arab support and under US leadership.
Point 5: Israel declares no territorial ambitions in Lebanon. Its operations/presence are limited to countering Hezbollah and non-state groups and will end upon their verified disarmament.
Point 6: Lebanon reaffirms its exclusive authority over national defense, war, and peace, rejecting unilateral decisions by any group or foreign state
Point 7: The Israeli and Lebanese governments preserve their exclusive inherent right of self-defense.
Point 8: Both countries also endorse a secure, rebuilt, sovereign Lebanon free of non-state threats; the restoration of South Lebanon under state authority; and the idea that securing northern Israel is essential to long-term peace.
Points 4 through 8 seek to transform Lebanon-Israel relations from a confrontation between the IDF and Hezbollah into a state-to-state arrangement: Lebanon monopolizes force, Hezbollah loses any armed role, and Israel loses its stated reason to remain or operate in Lebanon.
Points 4 through 6 undermine Hezbollah’s “resistance” narrative—that its arsenal is needed to defend a weak Lebanon against Israel’s allegedly permanent threat to Lebanese territory and resources. Israel therefore defines its objectives as security-driven rather than expansionist. Point 7 reserves self-defense exclusively for Lebanon and Israel, preserving that right because neither side trusts the framework’s implementation.
Point 8 is the agreed result: a secure, rebuilt Lebanon under exclusive state sovereignty, free of non-state armed threats, with Lebanese civilians returning to their country’s south and security restored to northern Israel. It is included because Hezbollah’s disarmament alone remains politically unsellable in Lebanon. Polling shows significant Lebanese support for a state monopoly on arms, but not as a self-justifying goal. Lebanese tend to pair the idea with an Israeli ceasefire and withdrawal, the return of civilians to South Lebanon, reconstruction, and stronger state capacity.
This theme of sovereign control and reciprocal security, particularly Point 8, seeks to do what the 1989 Taif Agreement, which ended Lebanon’s civil war, UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, and the November 2024 ceasefire agreement failed to do: make Lebanese performance and sovereign responsibility an enforceable condition for Israeli withdrawal and durable peace.
This theme can work in Southern Lebanon pilot zones previously occupied by Israel. It may even delegitimize Hezbollah by showing that Israel’s aims are limited to security: the IDF withdrawing when declared threats are removed, and Lebanon securing this outcome diplomatically. But nationwide disarmament is unrealistic unless Hezbollah’s Shiite support and resulting political veto weaken and the LAF expects minimal backlash for enforcement. In addition, an Israeli redeployment would need to be large enough to make enforcement look like Lebanon applying its sovereignty rather than rubberstamping an occupation.
Theme 4: Implementation incentives and safeguards
Point 9: Lebanon commits to a performance-based program enabling LAF action and nationwide disarmament; US assistance requires verifiable milestones, transparency, results, and oversight.
Point 10: The US will mobilize international support for reconstruction and recovery.
Point 11: Lebanon, with the United States, commits to block funds—including reconstruction aid—from non-state groups, including through legal measures.
Points 9 through 11 answer Lebanese government needs and public priorities—strengthening the LAF and securing reconstruction aid—but condition both on continuous performance. This gives Beirut stronger military capabilities, a path for the army to assume national defense, and post-war reconstruction in return for concessions to Israel. Lebanon cannot fund this alone: the World Bank estimates the reconstruction needs at roughly $11 billion, including $6.8 billion for physical damage and $7.2 billion in economic losses.
Reconstruction aid is also required to deny Hezbollah its post-2006 war narrative: Israel destroyed Lebanon, the state abandoned its citizens, and only the “resistance” rebuilt. Anti-diversion is essential because Hezbollah could capture foreign aid through welfare, reconstruction, financial, municipal, contractor, and social networks, followed by converting it into social and political legitimacy.
Enforcement will be difficult: donor nations want deliverables; Lebanese leaders want quick money with few constraints; and Hezbollah and Amal can use their political weight, shadow economy, services, ministries, agencies, and municipalities to block or dilute point 11. This theme of implementation incentives and safeguards is most realistic in pilot zones. However, its least realistic ambition is a clean nationwide anti-diversion while Hezbollah still controls major social, financial, and political networks.
Theme 5: A US-backed peace and normalization process
Point 12: Israel and Lebanon will draft a comprehensive peace and security agreement and begin direct, US-facilitated engagement toward lasting peace.
Point 13: Israel and Lebanon commit to good-faith confidence-building measures: ending hostile/adverse actions in international political/legal forums and pledging to work toward returning remains and releasing detainees.
Point 14: Israel and Lebanon acknowledge the US role in ending the conflict, particularly that of President Trump.
Points 12 through 14 are the Framework’s diplomatic end goal. They seek to turn the preceding themes into a continuing peace process. However, a US-backed peace and normalization process assumes prior implementation of the framework’s central security requirements: without Hezbollah’s disarmament, Israel will not withdraw; without withdrawal, any peace process will look illegitimate in Lebanon.
If “peace” means normalization, the framework faces broad opposition in Lebanon. May 2026 polling shows that normalization, with roughly 30 percent support, remains a minority position. Aoun and Salam have therefore consistently rejected that specific outcome in favor of “peace”—meaning, according to Aoun, a non-aggression or security agreement. Normalization, they say, would occur under the Arab Peace Initiative, requiring a prior resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.