Israel and Lebanon shift the next Rome security round to October

Israel and Lebanon will hold their next round of US-brokered security talks in Rome in October, a State Department official told Reuters on 13 September. The same official said the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors will meet in Washington next week. The official called continued work on the June Trilateral Framework “the only viable mechanism to restore Lebanon sovereignty and Israel security.”

The eighth Rome round had been discussed for this week. It slipped. Reporting by Axios and later by Reuters, AFP and others put the delay down to the Jewish high holidays, a Paris donor conference for the Lebanese Armed Forces, and preparations for the UN General Assembly. The seventh Rome round, in August, ended without a deal on the main territorial points.

The framework signed on 26 June is built around three moving parts: verified disarmament of Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups, a phased Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, and a Lebanese army deployment into the vacated ground, starting with pilot zones. Since April the two sides have held seven direct rounds, five in Washington and two in Rome. Technical groups have sat on military coordination, land and sea borders, and whether the pilot zones meet the tests written into the paper.

On the ground the paper is thin. Hezbollah and Israel went back to war on 2 March as part of the wider regional fight. The Israeli army holds what it calls a buffer about 10 kilometres inside Lebanon along the length of the border. Israeli officials say the strip is required to stop fire on northern towns. Lebanon health ministry has put the number of people killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since March above 4,300. Hezbollah secretary-general Naim Qassem denounced the talks and President Joseph Aoun role in them before the August round, and called the process shame and concession.

Washington is trying to keep a channel open while the casualty count rises. Tommy Pigott, the department spokesman, described the August sessions as work on full implementation, including the pilot-zone process. A source told the Jerusalem Post those talks felt positive on the first day and that military officers from both sides were in the room. Positive is not an agreement on where the line sits or who collects which weapons.

October in Rome will be the eighth attempt. The ambassador meeting in Washington next week is a lower-cost way to keep the calendar alive through the General Assembly. Neither date changes the facts in the 10-kilometre strip. The test for the October round is whether the pilot-zone file produces a map both chiefs of staff can live with, or whether the parties again leave Italy with a communique and the same trenches.

Until that map exists, the only new operational fact this week is the date change. The war did not pause for the holidays. The talks did.