Smoke rises after an Israeli attack on the southern outskirts of Beirut, March 9, 2026, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel during the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran and Lebanon.
Mohamed Azakir | Reuters
Lebanon’s economy minister told CNBC that Lebanon is seeking urgent clarification on whether it is part of the ceasefire that suspends the war with Iran, adding that it is receiving “mixed signals.”
Israel, which has been attacking Iranian-aligned Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, said a two-week ceasefire does not apply to the country and on Wednesday ordered the southern city of Tire to evacuate ahead of a possible attack.
“We are receiving mixed signals, or mixed reports,” Lebanon’s Economy Minister Amer Bissat told CNBC on Wednesday.
“Some have suggested that Lebanon is part of the cease-fire agreement, but others, including Israel, have suggested that it is not. We’ll have to see that over the next few hours. Obviously, our hope, our demand, has always been for an end to hostilities,” he told CNBC’s Dan Murphy.
Lebanon’s position on the ceasefire appears uncertain after the agreement was announced late Tuesday.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who helped broker the deal, announced overnight on social media platform
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office contradicted this statement, insisting in a post on X early Wednesday that “the two-week ceasefire does not include Lebanon.”
‘catastrophic’ setback
Lebanon and its capital Beirut have been the target of Israeli-led attacks against Iran’s Hezbollah proxy group for the past five weeks. Israeli ground forces have invaded the southern part of the country as part of a parallel operation against Tehran.
Hezbollah reportedly stopped its shelling of northern Israel and Israeli forces in Lebanon early Wednesday. According to Reuters, the group plans to issue a formal statement on the ceasefire in due course. French President Emmanuel Macron also joined calls for Lebanon to be included in the cease-fire agreement.
The United Nations says more than 1.1 million people have fled the Israeli attack that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon.
Bisat told CNBC that Beirut feels “forced into this war by a party over which it has no control” and that “the end of this war is obviously a very positive thing…I hope that Lebanon will join the war in the near future.”
Smoke rises from the remains of an Israeli airstrike on the southern outskirts of Beirut on March 3, 2026.
Ibrahim Amro | AFP | Getty Images
The economy minister said the conflict was a “huge setback” for Lebanon and its already struggling economy, and that the country was paying a “devastating price for this war”.
“In 2025, we started to see a little recovery, a little resurgence after years of crisis. But then this was a huge setback. The setback was on both levels. At the humanitarian level, in a country of 5 million people, 12 00,000 people were displaced…but it was also an economic blow taken by the country’s GDP,” Bisat said, estimating that the five-week war cost Lebanon “about 5-7% of GDP” in a very short period of time. ”
“All the recovery we saw last year disappeared in less than a month,” he added.
Stable trading?
News of the deal rattled global markets after US President Donald Trump threatened to wipe out Iran if it did not reopen oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices also fell below $100 per barrel, a welcome relief for consumers and businesses around the world.
But questions remain about whether the ceasefire can hold, with Israel and several Gulf states already reporting incoming missiles and drones on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister said in a statement published in X early Wednesday morning that “if attacks against Iran cease, our powerful military will cease defensive operations.”
Tehran added that safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz “will be possible in coordination with the Iranian Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations,” suggesting there may be some caveats to the deal.
