Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Monday that planned talks with Israel aim to end hostilities and the occupation in southern Lebanon, even as Hezbollah and its supporters rejected the negotiations.

Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah has sharply criticised the Lebanese government's negotiations with Israel, which are set to enter a second round on Thursday.

After the first round of talks last week, US President Donald Trump announced a 10-day truce pausing more than six weeks of war between Hezbollah and Israel, an explosive front in the broader Mideast war.

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said it was in Aoun's and Lebanon's "interest" to withdraw from the talks, however adding that his group also wanted the ceasefire to last.

New talks between Lebanon's and Israel's US ambassadors will take place on Thursday in Washington, a US State Department official said, after the first direct talks between the two countries in decades was held on April 14.

But Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported an Israeli drone strike in Qaqaiyat al-Jisr in the country's south on Monday, and Israeli artillery shelling on the border town of Hula.

The Lebanese health ministry said six people were wounded in Qaqaiyat al-Jisr.

Israel's army said in a statement that soldiers "identified terrorists" in the Bint Jbeil and Litani areas of southern Lebanon "who violated the ceasefire understandings," adding that that the air force "eliminated" them.

The NNA also reported Israeli army "detonations... in parallel with extensive demolition" operations in Mais al-Jabal, decrying "the systematic destruction impacting homes and livelihoods, buildings and infrastructure" in the town and several other border villages.

Fadlallah said that "it is in the interest of Lebanon, the president of the republic and the government to move away from the path of direct negotiation and return to a national understanding about the best option for Lebanon."

"Perhaps through indirect negotiations, even via the United States of America, we can achieve" Lebanon's goals, Fadlallah said.

Aoun said the aim of negotiations was to "stop hostilities, end the Israeli occupation of southern regions and deploy the (Lebanese) army all the way to the internationally recognised southern borders."

Fadlallah said regional powers including Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have worked to build a US-Iran diplomatic track, creating "a regional umbrella that can provide a kind of guarantee for Lebanon.

"Going into direct bilateral negotiations, alone, amid deep Lebanese divisions and internal disagreements, constitutes a threat to internal consensus."

Aoun on Friday had said that "we negotiate for ourselves... we are no longer a pawn in anyone's game, nor an arena for anyone's wars, and we never will be again."

Tehran had insisted that a Lebanon truce was among its conditions for a ceasefire with Washington in the Middle East war. (AFP)



Edited by Cecil Wong