Lebanese Paper Claims US Tried To Communicate With Hezbollah

Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar says the United States has sought to have a communication channel with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

According to al-Akhbar on Tuesday, the US government has delivered a message to Hezbollah via mediators, asking for a way to discuss various issues regarding Lebanon.

The report said Hezbollah informed the mediators that they reject any form of communication with the Americans.

Hashim Safi Al Din, a senior Hezbollah official -- and a maternal cousin of Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah – has reportedly confirmed the claim, saying that Americans tried to communicate with the Hezbollah leadership.

He said that a mediator carried the message, expressing Washington’s readiness to negotiate over any issue, but Hezbollah refusedwithout any discussion whatsoever.

Although such claims may be plausible, they are rarely officially reported and cannot be independently verified.

Recently, Israeli media reported that a deal was secretly signed with Beirut to supply natural gas to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria, adding that the agreement was brokered by Washington’s special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs Amos Hochstein and also coordinated with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Lebanese government and the US state department later denied the existence of such an agreement.

Lebanon has experienced an unprecedented economic breakdown since 2019, and some blame Hezbollah for the country’s isolation.