BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon has no plans to have normal relations with Israel at the present time, and Beirut’s main aim is to reach a “state of no war” with its southern neighbor, the country’s president said Friday.

Israel struck Syria’s military headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday and moved more troops to the border area in a bid, officials said, to prevent attacks against the Syrian Druze community.

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun urged the Israeli regime to withdraw entirely from the Arab country. Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun says that his country does not seek to normalize relations with the Israeli regime.

A Lebanese A-29 Super Tucano student pilot and a U.S. instructor pilot train in 2017 at Moody Air Force Base, Ga. The State Department approved a $100 million sale to Lebanon on July 11, 2025, for delivery of parts, equipment and logistical support for the country's Super Tucano planes. (Zachary Wolf/U.S. Air Force)

Open-source intelligence analysts reported that a mass mobilization was declared in all of Syria's governorates despite the ceasefire.

Lebanon’s president says his country wants peace but not normalisation with Israel, as health authorities said an Israeli air strike killed one person in the south of the country. As well as causing one death on Friday, the drone attack on a car in Nabatieh district wounded five other people, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

U.S. Envoy Thomas Barrack welcomes Lebanon's response to proposal calling for Hezbollah disarmament within four months, suggesting potential peace talks with Israel

It is more secure from threats than at any time since its founding. But the war in Gaza, and attacks on Iran and Lebanon, have undercut Israel’s standing among the world’s democracies.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun played down the prospects of normalisation with Israel, for the time being, on Friday, while expressing hope for peaceful relations with the country which still occupies parts of southern Lebanon.

The Druze, a minority group in Syria, are at the heart of escalating tensions with Israel, prompting Israeli airstrikes to safeguard them.