Here's what to know.

- Why now? -

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel in support of its backer Iran, sparking massive Israeli strikes and a ground invasion.

Since then, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly expressed readiness for direct talks with Israel.

Lebanon and Israel have officially been at war since 1948 and have no formal diplomatic relations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered his cabinet to open direct talks with Lebanon "in light of Lebanon's repeated requests".

The announcement came a day after wide-scale Israeli strikes in Beirut and across the country killed more than 300 people, just hours after a ceasefire was announced between the United States and Iran.

Washington and Tehran have since been at odds on whether the deal included Lebanon.

David Wood, senior Lebanon analyst at the International Crisis Group, told AFP that Netanyahu's government "clearly agreed to negotiate with Lebanon at this moment under pressure from the United States, Israel's key ally".

Washington's "overriding priority in the region is to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to global shipping traffic", he said, adding that "Israel's brutal attacks on Lebanon threatened to undermine that objective, as Iran insisted that the US-Iran ceasefire cover Lebanon too".

A US official has said that the State Department would host a meeting next week "to discuss ongoing ceasefire negotiations with Israel and Lebanon".

Alex Grinberg, an expert on Iran at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told AFP's Jerusalem bureau that Israel has agreed to the talks "simply to respond to international diplomatic pressure".

- What does each side want? -

A Lebanese government official told AFP on Thursday that Lebanon wants a ceasefire before starting any negotiations with Israel.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2 have killed nearly 1,900 people and displaced more than one million, according to the authorities.

Beirut is seeking the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanese territory.

Thursday's statement from Netanyahu's office said the negotiations would "focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peace relations between Israel and Lebanon".

But Israel has shown little readiness to halt the war and says it wants to eliminate the threat Hezbollah poses to residents of the country's north.

Israeli officials have repeatedly said that Israel wants to establish a "security zone" in south Lebanon to help prevent Hezbollah attacks.

- What are the chances for a deal? -

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday urged Lebanon's government to stop giving "free concessions" to Israel.

A day earlier, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad reiterated his group's rejection of any direct talks between the two countries, instead calling for Israel's army to withdraw.

After a November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end a previous round of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's government committed to disarming the group, and the army had been doing so in the country's south when the new fighting erupted.

But Hezbollah's attacks since March 2 show the group still has considerable military might.

"This latest war has reiterated that the Lebanese government cannot enforce major political decisions without Hezbollah's buy-in," said Wood.

The group "refuses to comply with the state-led disarmament process, and has kept waging a large-scale war against Israel in defiance of an official ban on the group's military activities", he added, referring to a government decision last month.

"Hezbollah must be at the negotiating table, even if only indirectly, for the talks to lead anywhere," he said, adding that Iran would also need to support any arrangement.

In December, Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives held their first direct talks in decades, as part of a committee monitoring the 2024 ceasefire.

The countries reached a US-brokered maritime border agreement two years earlier.

In 1983, a fragile Lebanese state signed an accord with Israel after its troops invaded the previous year, but the deal was annulled months later following pressure from Syria and allied Lebanese parties.