The 14-point memorandum of understanding signed in Washington between Israel and the Lebanese government on June 26, 2026, after five rounds of talks in Washington, constitutes a significant diplomatic achievement even if the conditions currently prevailing in southern Lebanon leave doubts as to whether it can be implemented. The strategic importance of the document—which contains classified operational annexes—rests on four elements:

1. Lebanon has recognized Israel and its sovereignty in an official document for the first time since 1983. The October 2022 agreement on exclusive economic zones, by contrast, was neither reached nor signed directly between the two sides; each side dealt separately with the United States. Under current conditions of isolation and hostility facing Israel, formal Lebanese recognition carries added weight.
   
   
2. Lebanon’s acceptance, at least in principle, of the goal of dismantling all nongovernmental militias (Hezbollah and its associated elements)—and the understanding that Israel will not withdraw from Lebanon as long as those forces remain armed.
   
   
3. Agreement that implementation will proceed in a modular, “step-by-step” fashion. Israel will evacuate limited “pilot” areas, but at each stage will retain the ability to stop the process if the Lebanese Armed Forces appear not to be meeting their obligations. American monitoring will oversee the process; the issue was discussed on July 1 in the meeting between the IDF chief of staff and the U.S. coordinator, Lt. Gen. Joseph Clearfield. In practice, this arrangement leaves UNIFIL with no meaningful role.
   
   
4. The notable change in Washington’s position since the June 17 MoU with Iran, which seemed to uphold a  linkage between an arrangement with Tehran and the situation in Lebanon. This shift in the American stance is perhaps the most important aspect of the new MoU. .) Iran had demanded a role in Lebanon and a full Israeli withdrawal, opening a “slippery slope” toward further demands—captured in Araghchi’s wording that the United States should “muzzle its pets in Tel Aviv.” The agreement with Lebanon takes the opposite course: it gives neither Iran nor Hezbollah, as an independent actor, political standing over Lebanon’s future.

Question marks remain over implementation of the agreement, and the failures of the past make caution unavoidable. President Joseph Aoun’s government, along with many voices in Lebanon’s public sphere, now sounds determined to free the country from the grip of an organization loyal to a foreign power, Iran. Yet the army has been penetrated by elements identified with Hezbollah. Until Hezbollah’s control over the Shiite community weakens, it remains unclear whether the army can perform the task. Western and Emirati assistance could improve the prospects for success. Israel, for its part, has a clear interest in preventing Turkish and Syrian involvement in Lebanon.

Key Elements of the MoU with Lebanon

The June 26, 2026, MoU with Lebanon can be regarded as a significant diplomatic achievement, even if the prospects for its implementation remain uncertain. It establishes, both symbolically and practically, a new reality in relations between the two countries, that, paradoxically, came after Israeli operations had caused extensive destruction in Lebanon, especially in the south, and after the previous ceasefire on April 17 was followed by a deterioration in the security situation with attacks on IDF forces, mainly by explosive drones, and, gradually, renewed strikes against military and civilian targets inside Israel.

The 2022 agreement on the maritime boundary between the two exclusive economic zones followed a very different model. It was negotiated indirectly, with each side dealing separately with U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, and it was signed as two separate agreements with the United States. The present agreement followed five rounds of direct talks in Washington, led by the two countries’ ambassadors and joined in some rounds by military officers from both sides. The signing itself was direct, bilateral, and conducted on camera—an expression of a substantive change in the relationship.

The MoU incorporates three central elements consistent with Israel’s basic positions:

1. The wording of the document, and the way the negotiations were conducted, rest on mutual recognition of the two states’ sovereignty. The MoU also expresses the aspiration to reach a peace agreement once the process is completed, a concept that has been absent from Lebanese discourse for more than forty years. There is great importance to this at a time when Israel’s diplomatic isolation has become a strategic issue in its own right, and when relations with regional states once seen as potential partners for expanding the circle of peace are in retreat.
   
   
2. The MoU explicitly calls for the disarmament of militias not subject to Lebanese state authority. That demand, indeed, accords with a basic condition of sovereignty, namely the state’s monopoly on the use of military force. Hezbollah is not named, but it is obvious which party is targeted by these remarks. Statements by President Aoun and senior members of his government also reflect this demand. Courageous voices in Lebanon’s public sphere openly condemn the reality in which Lebanon sustains serious blows in a war that is not its own and is being fought in the service of a foreign state, Iran. Many Lebanese hold Hezbollah responsible, even as they condemn Israel for the scale of destruction in southern Lebanon.
   
   
3. No less important is the fact that the MoU adopts a modular operational model. Under the framework set out in the classified annexes, every IDF withdrawal from an agreed area will test whether the Lebanese Armed Forces, under American supervision, can assert control and prevent Hezbollah from restoring its presence. The core principle is staged testing of commitments before territorial concessions are made. That principle stood behind the separation agreements of the 1970s (Henry Kissinger’s “step-by-step” approach) and was also supposed to anchor the original Oslo framework, before that process went off course.

The Importance of the American Dimension

The American role in advancing an agreement that gives Iran no foothold is highly significant under present conditions. Only nine days earlier, President Donald Trump signed an MoU with Iran that explicitly linked the planned negotiations on the nuclear issue and passage through the Strait of Hormuz to the situation in Lebanon and to Iran’s demand for an Israeli withdrawal. Washington’s explanations for the Iran agreement reflected reluctance to use force and doubt about the ability to reopen the strait. Even if only by implication, this placed Iran in a position of leverage over the future of the entire global economy.

In view of this American messaging, alongside Hezbollah’s growing difficulties inside Lebanon, Iran moved quickly to press demands on Israel in this arena. Its language gave those demands the blunt character of extortion; Foreign Minister Araghchi recently demanded that the United States “muzzle its pets in Tel Aviv.” The problem lies not only in the dangerous substance of the demands. Any step perceived as the result of an Iranian dictate would immediately become the starting point for the next round of demands—a “slippery slope” of concessions to an adversary that holds the advantage.

The trilateral agreement with Lebanon, by contrast, excludes Iran from the Lebanese equation. It is noteworthy that Lebanon’s own leadership has made the same point explicitly, presenting the move as a way to break the grip of a foreign actor. Hezbollah is not a party to the decisions either, even its future as a military force is directly at stake. The United States is thereby signaling to the Revolutionary Guards regime in Tehran that the latter does not hold all the cards.

It would be a mistake, especially from Israel’s perspective, to speculate about the internal balance of power within the Trump administration or about the reasons for the president’s about turn, which was also evident in the renewed warnings to Iran about what may happen if talks with Tehran fail to produce results. Suffice it is to say that the Lebanon agreement shows that the administration, and the president personally, recognized the risk created by Iran’s “triumphalism” and the need to arrest the slide before it gathered further momentum.

What Comes Next?

Both sides have an interest in carrying out the first stage of the agreement in the “pilot” zones, and the narrow, clearly defined nature of that step gives reason to expect it to succeed. The broader process, however, is far less certain to succeed, both in terms of military realities on the ground and political progress between the two states. Two precedents should temper expectations: Syria used threats of force to block implementation of the peace agreement reached in the 1983 Yarza talks, and Hezbollah defeated the Lebanese Armed Forces with relative ease in May 2008, when the confrontation centered on control of Beirut airport and the electromagnetic spectrum.

At the same time there are marked differences between those events and today’s circumstances. Hezbollah is now far weaker than it was until 2024. Its strategic rear in Syria has collapsed, and it faces an implicit threat from the current regime in Damascus—one Trump chose to highlight—to settle accounts over Hezbollah’s role, on behalf of the Assad regime, in the slaughter of the Syrian people. Meanwhile, public debate in Lebanon is increasingly marked by calls to free the country from Iranian domination. These factors all improve the prospects for success. Yet implementation of the understandings with Iran on sanctions relief could enable Tehran to help Hezbollah recover, thereby threatening the implementation of the Lebanon–Israel agreement. Iran could also challenge the agreement directly by carrying out its threats, but for now it appears content to threaten rather than act.

In any event, the process will require:

1. Material support from the United States, Western countries, and the United Arab Emirates to stabilize the current regime against its enemies. (Israel has an interest in limiting Turkey’s influence.)
   
   
2. Close coordination with American monitors, based on a detailed intelligence picture and the partnership with CENTCOM built in recent years, and especially during the recent war with Iran. Israel must remain aware, however, that the Americans may have an interest in presenting Lebanese Armed Forces successes even when they have not been fully verified on the ground.
   
   
3. Patience, and recognition by Israel that a serious effort to make progress serves an important purpose. It can help create, as far as possible, a new reality in Lebanon, and it can also show Washington that its shift on Iran’s role has proved justified. At the same time, until Hezbollah is genuinely disarmed, Israel must not give up its military presence up to the yellow line in southern Lebanon or its freedom of action against threats from Hezbollah.

JISS Policy Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.