Saudi Arabia’s recent intervention aimed at producing a single Lebanese posture toward talks with Israel has been disrupted by an intensifying split at the top of Lebanon’s political hierarchy, Lebanese sources and foreign officials said.
Riyadh, which has historically played a role in Lebanon’s political arrangements and sponsored the 1990 pact that ended the country’s civil war, increased its engagement in recent days as Beirut navigates a fragile truce with Israel that the United States helped broker. That ceasefire has not fully halted nearly two months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed movement that wields significant influence in Lebanon.
Saudi officials view an opening to re-engage with Lebanon after Hezbollah emerged weakened following the 2024 hostilities with Israel, but those efforts have met resistance from the reality of competing Lebanese positions on both the shape and objective of any negotiations with Israel.
Top-level disagreement
President Joseph Aoun has publicly defended the idea of face-to-face talks with Israel in Washington and argued that the temporary ceasefire should be converted into "permanent agreements." While he has not explicitly framed his position as a call for a full peace treaty, two sources familiar with his views told Reuters that he has privately signaled a willingness to normalize ties with Israel to bring an end to the fighting.
Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, aligned with Hezbollah, opposes direct talks. According to two Lebanese sources familiar with his stance, Berri believes that Lebanon should pursue a non-aggression pact with Israel rather than a comprehensive peace agreement. That position mirrors the stance of Hezbollah and much of its Shi'ite constituency, which has suffered heavily from Israeli strikes and opposes normalizing relations.
Saudi mediation upset by public spat
Last week, Saudi Arabia’s envoy to Lebanon, Prince Yazid bin Farhan, traveled to Beirut to urge President Aoun, Speaker Berri and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to articulate a common position on negotiations and to demonstrate unity through a three-way meeting, according to two senior Lebanese political figures who met with the envoy and a Western official briefed on the discussions.
Those plans unraveled this week amid escalating tensions after Berri publicly accused Aoun of making statements about the negotiations that were "inaccurate, to say the least," the sources said. The rising acrimony prevented the tripartite gathering that Riyadh had sought as a show of unified intent.
There was no immediate comment from the presidency or the Saudi government media office. The presidency did say that Aoun met with Prime Minister Salam on Thursday, without reference to Berri.
Wider social and political divisions
The split between Aoun and Berri is grounded in Lebanon’s power-sharing system, which allocates the top offices along religious lines, but it also reflects broader public divisions over negotiations with Israel. Some Lebanese see direct talks and a rapid peace process as the only path to end recurrent Israeli incursions into Lebanon. Others, especially those who have borne the brunt of Israel’s military campaign, are firmly opposed to face-to-face negotiations and to normalizing ties.
Earlier this month, protests against talks included calls for the government to be toppled, highlighting the potential for domestic unrest tied to the direction of diplomatic moves.
Saudi aims and cautions
Sources in the Gulf, senior Lebanese political figures and the Western official said Saudi Arabia’s intervention was motivated by concerns about possible instability in Beirut as well as unease that Lebanon might advance toward a formal peace with Israel faster than Riyadh was prepared to accept. Prince Yazid bin Farhan is reported to have sought guarantees that Hezbollah would not attempt to overthrow the Lebanese government, and to have warned Lebanese leaders that any momentum toward peace with Israel should not move ahead of Saudi expectations.
Riyadh’s long-held policy, as described by the sources, is that it will only join the Abraham Accords process if there is an agreed path toward Palestinian statehood. At the same time, the Gulf interlocutors signaled that Saudi Arabia wants Lebanon to pursue a form of "detente" with Israel that would reduce instability in the country and the region.
International overtures
The United States has sought to use the April 16 truce to open direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon. U.S. President Donald Trump said this month he would invite Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House for talks. Saudi officials reportedly advised Lebanese authorities to discourage Aoun from meeting Netanyahu in the near term.
Human cost and continuing violence
Lebanese authorities say Israeli strikes have killed more than 2,500 people in Lebanon and displaced over 1.2 million since the most recent escalation began on March 2. The April 16 truce eased strikes on Beirut and its southern suburbs but did not stop attacks in other regions of Lebanon. An Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed three civil defence rescuers.
As Saudi mediation falters in the face of entrenched internal divisions, Lebanon’s path toward any negotiated settlement with Israel remains uncertain. The contest between calls for normalization and staunch opposition to direct talks mirrors deeper political and societal fractures that could shape the country’s short-term stability and its diplomatic orientation.