ROME – Foreign ministers from the world’s leading industrialized nations expressed cautious optimism Monday about possible progress on a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The top diplomats met for the final time before a new U.S. administration takes office with wars raging in the Mideast and Ukraine.
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“Knock on wood,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said as he opened the Group of Seven meeting outside Rome. “We are perhaps close to a ceasefire in Lebanon," he said. "Let's hope it's true and that there's no backing down at the last-minute.”
A ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon was foremost on the agenda of the G7 meeting in Fiuggi, outside Rome, that gathered ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, in the last G7 encounter of the Biden administration.
For the first time, the G7 ministers were joined by their counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, the so-called “Arab Quintet,” as well as the Secretary General of the Arab League.
“Everyone favors a ceasefire in both scenarios,” Tajani told reporters, adding that Italy had offered to take on an even greater peacekeeping role in Lebanon to oversee any ceasefire deal.
As the ministers arrived in Italy, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Mike Herzog, told Israeli Army Radio on Monday a ceasefire deal to end fighting between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah could be reached “within days.”
Several Arab ministers reiterated calls for a ceasefire in both Lebanon and Gaza during a G7-affiliated conference in Rome.
“We need a ceasefire, a permanent ceasefire. That will stop the killings and stop the destruction and restore a sense of normalcy to life,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told the conference.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, for his part, reaffirmed that Cairo would host a minister-level conference next Monday on mobilizing international aid for Gaza.
The so-called “Quintet” has been working with the U.S. to finalize a “day after” plan for Gaza. There is some urgency to make progress before the Trump administration takes over in January. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to pursue a policy that strongly favors Israel over the aspirations of the Palestinians.
Tajani added another item to the G7 agenda last week after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas’ military chief.
Italy is a founding member of the court and hosted the 1998 Rome conference that gave birth to it. But Italy’s right-wing government has been a strong supporter of Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, while also providing humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.
The Italian government has taken a cautious line, reaffirming its support and respect for the court but expressing concern that the warrants were politically motivated. The United States, Israel's closest ally, has called the warrants “outrageous.”
Tajani acknowledged consensus hadn't been reached among the G7 members but hoped for agreement to have a unified position. He noted that all sides need Netanyahu to make any deal.
“We can also not agree with how his government has led the reaction after the massacre of Oct. 7, but now we have to deal with Netanyahu to arrive at peace in Lebanon, peace in Palestine,” Tajani said.
Nathalie Tocci, director of the Rome-based Institute for International Affairs think tank, warned that inserting the ICC warrant into the G7 agenda was risky, since the U.S. is the lone member that is not a signatory to the court and yet tends to dictate the G7 line.
“If Italy and the other (five G7) signatories of the ICC are unable to maintain the line on international law, they will not only erode it anyway but will be acting against our interests,” Tocci wrote in La Stampa daily this weekend, recalling Italy’s recourse to international law in demanding protection for Italian U.N. peacekeepers who have come under fire in southern Lebanon.
The other major talking point of the G7 meeting is Ukraine, and tensions have only heightened since Russia attacked Ukraine last week with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strike was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
The G7 has been at the forefront of providing military and economic support for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and G7 members are particularly concerned about how a Trump administration will change the U.S. approach.
Trump has criticized the billions of dollars that the Biden administration has poured into Ukraine and has said he could end the war in 24 hours, comments that appear to suggest he would press Ukraine to surrender territory that Russia now occupies.
“It’s hugely important that this G7, that all colleagues across the G7 continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it lasts,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said as he arrived. He announced new sanctions on vessels of Russia's “shadow fleet” of ships that are evading sanctions to export Russian oil.
“And we are confident that Ukraine can have the funds and the military equipment and kit to get through 2025,” Lammy said.
The G7 foreign ministers’ meeting, the second of the Italian presidency after ministers gathered in Capri in April, is being held in the medieval town of Fiuggi southeast of Rome, best known for its thermal spas.
On Monday, which coincides with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, ministers were attending the inauguration of a red bench meant to symbolize Italy’s focus on fighting gender-based violence.
Over the weekend, tens of thousands of people marched in Rome to protest gender-based violence, which in Italy so far this year has claimed the lives of 99 women, according to a report last week by the Eures think tank.