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Israel and Lebanon agreed to direct negotiations following talks in Washington on Tuesday that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had hailed as a “historic opportunity” for peace.
The two countries have technically been at war for decades, and Tuesday’s talks have been vehemently opposed by Hezbollah, which announced that it had fired rockets at more than a dozen northern Israeli towns just as the meeting was getting under way.
The United States is pressing for a halt to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, fearing it could derail the two-week ceasefire in Washington’s war with Iran after talks with Tehran in Pakistan failed to achieve a breakthrough.
Tuesday’s meeting in Washington, the first high-level direct talks since 1993, was mediated by Rubio and involved the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States.
