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BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 5 (UPI) — Negotiations between Lebanon and Israel took a new turn this week, as the long-time enemies agreed to engage in direct, U.S.-backed talks — their first in decades — meant to contain escalation, achieve a stronger truce and ultimately aim for a broader peace agreement.

The two countries, however, have different objectives and expectations, making it more likely that the status quo, which has prevailed since their November 2024 cease-fire — with Israel continuing its military operations and Hezbollah refraining from retaliation — will be maintained, according to political analysts.

For Lebanon, negotiations represent the only available means to deter Israel. To Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu, it means economic cooperation and thus normalization.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who last October opted to negotiate with Israel as the only path that could lead to stability and security, took another daring step by appointing a civilian – former Ambassador to Washington Simon Karam – to lead Lebanon’s military team to the truce monitoring meeting.

Israel sent Uri Resnick, the National Security Council’s deputy director for foreign policy, to Wednesday’s meeting at the United Nations peacekeeping force headquarters in Naqoura, a Lebanese border town.

“We are committed to this option,” Aoun told a visiting U.N. Security Council delegation and U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus on Friday.

He said the new phase of negotiations, which began with Karam’s appointment, is primarily aimed at halting Israeli hostilities on Lebanese territory, securing the return of prisoners and scheduling the withdrawal from occupied areas.

They also seek to resolve disputed points along the Blue Line — a 75-mile unofficial “border” drawn up by the U.N. between the two countries in 2000.

However, the success of the negotiations depends fundamentally on Israel. The country has repeatedly ignored Lebanon’s calls for talks and its demands, which include a withdrawal — even a gradual one — from five strategic positions it still occupies in southern Lebanon, along with the return of displaced residents and the reconstruction of their border villages.

Israel has been imposing its own terms and operating with near-total freedom in Lebanon, insisting on Hezbollah’s complete disarmament, even as the Lebanese Army has successfully removed the group’s military presence along the border and south of the Litani River.

That is still not enough for Israel, which wants the Army to strip the Iran-backed group of its weapons across the entire country without delay — or, if it does not, to do it itself.

However, without Israel withdrawing from the areas it occupies in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Army will not be able to take full control of the south by year’s end or complete its mission across the country at a later, yet-to-be-defined stage.

Hezbollah is not making things easy, announcing that it has managed to reorganize its ranks and secure new channels for rearming and funding.

Moreover, its leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, insisted Friday that the group will not disarm and rejected the direct talks, saying, “It is a free concession that will not change the enemy’s stance, its aggression or its occupation.”

Lebanese officials hoped that by agreeing to direct negotiations, the country could be spared another large-scale Israeli war, amid recent threats indicating that all of Lebanon and its infrastructure — not just Hezbollah — could be targeted.

“So far, we have not been able to stop the escalation, but we have managed to prevent the war from spreading to all of Lebanon, despite receiving no guarantees from Israel or the U.S.,” a Lebanese official source told UPI, referring to renewed Israeli attacks on south Lebanon on Thursday.

The source said Lebanon has “no trust” in Israel, but “our choice is not war; rather, diplomacy, as we lack the capacity or means” to confront it.

He maintained that while Lebanon implemented the truce accord, with the Army deployment and Hezbollah disarming efforts, Israel did not halt its aggressions and caused destruction more than 10 times greater since the cease-fire.

“We are committed to maintaining the arms monopoly, and Lebanon will not allow anyone to approach the border and start a war,” he said.

Israeli officials appear to have overstated Lebanon’s decision to engage in direct talks, possibly deliberately, after Netanyahu announced that the two sides had agreed at Wednesday’s meeting to “develop ideas to promote possible economic cooperation.”

Sami Nader, Middle Eastern affairs analyst and director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, said the new talks created a new momentum that somehow slowed the escalation. but “kept the specter of war.”

Nader said that besides the security issues, Israel has added “an economic clause” to the discussions, apparently aiming to review the U.S.-mediated maritime border deal that, in 2022, ended a yearslong dispute between the two countries over ownership of natural gas fields.

“It could also be related to the establishment of an economic zone, with all its associated infrastructure projects,” he told UPI, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump‘s proposal to create an industrial and investment buffer zone along the southern border, free of Hezbollah.

Such economic cooperation or normalization would only be possible if a peace deal is achieved in line with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, according to Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.

Until the moment for such a peace agreement comes, the parties to the conflict are trying to buy time.

“They [Americans] are trying to manage the crisis, not solve it, until things are clear with the Israelis,” said Riad Tabbarah, Lebanon’s former ambassador in Washington. “The conflict between the U.S. and Israel is much deeper than we can see.”

Tabbarah argued that Israel’s most right-wing government believes that now is the time to pursue “Greater Israel,” while Trump is seeking a Nobel Prize for achieving peace in the Middle East, which would mean recognition for Israel and normalization.

“It is a lifetime opportunity for Israel, with the Arabs defeated and Iran’s influence in retreat,” he told UPI. “So, the Americans need time to come out with a solution.”

Until then, the status is likely to remain: Israel acting freely and trying to impose a de facto situation, while Hezbollah has no choice, being unable to confront Israel’s air supremacy and firepower, according to Tabbarah.