WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would allow U.S. airlines to resume direct flights to Lebanon more than 40 years after the United States suspended direct flights there.
After the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, President Ronald Reagan’s administration suspended direct flights between the United States and Lebanon.
“I hereby direct my administration to allow all U.S. airlines to fly direct to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land,” Trump said in a social media post after meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun early Tuesday.
Trump pledged help during a White House meeting with the country’s leader, Joseph Aoun, on Tuesday lebanon ‘A lot.’ Aoun comes to Washington to push for long-term calm after months of war between Israel and Iran-backed countries Hezbollah Radical organizations.
The United States has been pushing for peace in Lebanon but has become increasingly distracted by a new escalation of conflict in Lebanon. iran warwhich destabilized much of the Middle East. Trump has recently said he has little interest in negotiating with Iran’s leaders to end the war — at least for now.
Lebanon and Israel held rare direct talks brokered by Washington. Aoun’s visit to the White House is the first time a Lebanese president has visited the White House since 2009.
“This is a place and country that has been treated very badly and we will treat it properly and give it the respect it deserves,” Trump told Aoun at a meeting that concluded the Lebanese leader’s four-day visit to Washington. “We will provide a lot of help,” he said, without giving specifics.
Lebanon hopes the outcome of the Washington talks will be the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the swaths of southern Lebanon they currently occupy and support for Lebanese forces to take full control of areas once held by Hezbollah militants.
“They’re doing it. They’re redeploying,” Trump said of a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, without elaborating.
“Your vision is peace,” Aoun told Trump, calling it Trump’s “legacy.”
The US president jokingly responded, “I do agree with that,” and said Aoun was handsome and “knows how to approach me,” adding, “Now he can have anything.”
lebanon and israel Announcement of “Framework Agreement” On June 26, a plan was drawn up to call for the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the disarmament of Hezbollah, which has held a strong presence in southern Lebanon for decades. Implementation of the agreement will begin with a small “pilot area”.
The U.S. State Department said on Monday that operations had begun in three villages in a trial area. Two of them – Froen and Sirifa – were not under Israeli military control to begin with, Lebanese troops were already there, and Israeli troops were at one time stationed in parts of the third village, Zawtar al-Gharbieh.
The Israeli military said it would “adjust its force posture in one of the pilot areas to allow the Lebanese Armed Forces to carry out its mission,” without specifying the location.
The Lebanese army said it would begin deploying troops in Zawatar al-Gharbiyah on Tuesday.
The June 26 agreement also lays out the steps to eventually reach an Israeli-Lebanese peace agreement. The two countries have never established formal diplomatic relations and have been in a nominal state of war for nearly 80 years since the founding of Israel.
Trump noted on Tuesday that “there is a Hezbollah problem” in Lebanon and said he could personally talk to Hezbollah if Aoun wanted to. He also proposed again Syria steps in to fight Hezbollah — though he’s not entirely committed to that.
Such a concept is deeply unpopular in Lebanon and could embarrass Aoun.
It was unclear whether Israeli forces actually withdrew from any territory on Tuesday. A Lebanese army official said the Lebanese army was not sure whether Israeli forces had entered Zawatar Gharbiyeh before Tuesday, but they were in a neighboring area and would fire on anyone who tried to enter.
An Israeli military official said that Israeli troops have not entered Zavatar Gharbiyah “for some time” and “we have not withdrawn from there.” Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in compliance with military regulations.
Still, the pilot area got off to a rocky start.
The Lebanese military said Israeli forces opened fire on Tuesday near areas where they were deployed. The Israeli military said that Lebanese soldiers entered an area that was not part of the test zone, and the Israeli army fired warning shots in the air.
The Lebanese army disputed this, saying Lebanese soldiers were inside the testing zone when Israeli forces opened fire. It called on Israel to resolve the dispute through “established channels of coordination and communication rather than resorting to aggression.”
Abed Ezzeldin, the mayor of Zawatar Gharbiyeh, is waiting for news from the Lebanese military about whether displaced residents are checking whether their homes are safe.
Civilians will go in, he said, but “just to see how things go and then we’ll leave.”
“We cannot stay because the infrastructure is completely damaged and the houses have been razed. They have bulldozed the roads,” he added.
The Lebanese military last week increased its presence in some areas expected to be included in the trial zone, with troops conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints.
Aoun meets with US Secretary of State on Sunday Marco RubioHe said Washington would continue to recognize the Lebanon agreement and support its full implementation. Rubio described the meeting as “very positive” and warned that as long as the Hezbollah problem is not resolved, Lebanon will “never be fully at peace.”
“How do you replace Hezbollah? You defeat them and replace them with a government that is strong enough to be the only armed force in the country,” Rubio said.
Skeptics in Lebanon fear a military confrontation with Hezbollah could lead to civil war.
Rubio echoed government officials urging investments in the country’s battered infrastructure to build capacity in fragile states.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials say they plan to keep their troops in the “safe zone” in southern Lebanon for the long term.
Hezbollah has rejected U.S.-brokered direct talks in favor of talks between Washington and its main ally and patron Iran to end their war, including an end to the war in Lebanon as a condition.
The Lebanese government came to power in early 2025 on a reformist platform, vowing to disarm all non-state groups, including Hezbollah. The Lebanese government accused Hezbollah of dragging Lebanon into another war with Israel when the armed group fired several rockets into northern Israel two days after the United States and Israel attacked Iran.
However, Beirut’s leadership condemned Israel’s subsequent ground invasion and massive air strikes in the country, which have killed more than 4,000 people and displaced 1.2 million.
In the deeply divided country, Lebanon’s leadership, while grappling with fierce political opposition from Hezbollah and its allies, insists that an Israeli withdrawal and international financial support for Lebanon’s cash-strapped army are crucial to a sustainable security solution.
Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Giovanna del Alto and Erin Cunningham in Jerusalem and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
