A US-brokered agreement linking Israel's withdrawal to Hezbollah's disarmament has split Lebanon, with the armed group calling the deal a surrender and warning of internal conflict.
Israel's cabinet voted unanimously on 28 June 2026 to recognise the 1915 Armenian genocide, the first official state act after a century of reticence shaped by ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar called it a moral and historical duty; the resolution now heads to the Knesset. Turkey condemned the move as a political decision designed to cover Israel's own conduct in Gaza.
Israel and Lebanon, still technically at war, signed a US-mediated framework on 26 June pledging to end their conflict through a sequenced, conditional process. Israel will hand two pilot zones to the Lebanese army once Hezbollah is disarmed there, but keeps its security zone and sets no timetable. Beirut called it a first step; Hezbollah rejected it.
With the Iran war paused, southern Syria — Israel's buffer zone in Quneitra and Daraa and the Druze crisis around Suwayda — is emerging as the front Europe fears most.
Lebanon, Israel and the United States signed a trilateral framework agreement in Washington on 26 June 2026, setting out a sequenced process to disarm Hezbollah and eventually withdraw Israeli forces. Hours later Hezbollah, excluded from the talks, rejected the deal, exposing the framework's central weakness.
An investigation drawing on EU foreign service and UN figures estimates Israeli military operations have destroyed at least €150 million of EU-funded buildings and infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank since October 2023, with no compensation paid.
A renewed US-, Qatari- and Iranian-mediated truce halted the deadliest flare-up along the Israel-Lebanon frontier as negotiators prepared to reconvene the week of 22 June, though Hezbollah's rejection of disarmament terms and Israel's refusal to leave a buffer zone keep a comprehensive settlement out of reach.
Meeting in Luxembourg on 15 June, EU foreign ministers once more failed to muster the unanimity needed to sanction Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Luxembourg's Xavier Bettel, among the bloc's sharpest critics of its inaction, has accused larger members of hiding behind history to excuse paralysis on Gaza.