BEIRUT: Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reprised his role as a key interlocutor between Hezbollah and the United States as Washington sought to mediate an end to the war with Israel, drawing on decades of experience to help clinch the deal.
It has underlined the sway the 86-year-old still holds over Lebanon, particularly the Shiite Muslim community in which he has loomed large for decades, and has been seen as a steadying influence since Israel killed Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, in September.
Addressing Lebanese in a televised speech on Wednesday, Berri said Lebanon was closing “a historical moment that was the most dangerous that Lebanon has ever experienced,” and appealed to Lebanese to show unity for the sake of Lebanon.
Berri rose to prominence as head of the Shiite Amal Movement during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war. He has served as parliament speaker — the highest role for a Shiite in Lebanon’s sectarian order — since 1992.
Hezbollah’s new leader Sheikh Naim Qassem endorsed Berri as a negotiator, calling him the group’s “big brother.” US envoy Amos Hochstein met Berri repeatedly during numerous visits to Beirut aiming to broker an end to the hostilities which were fought in parallel with the Gaza war and escalated dramatically in September.
It echoed the role Berri played in helping to bring an end to the last major war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.
Diplomats say his role has been all the more important because Lebanon is without a president, its cabinet has only partial authority, and there are few ways to access Hezbollah, which is branded a terrorist group by the United States.
“When you come to Lebanon now, he is really the only person worth meeting. He is the state,” a Beirut-based diplomat said.
He rose to global prominence in 1985 by helping negotiate the release of 39 Americans held hostage in Beirut by Shiite militants who hijacked a US airliner during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.
His election as speaker after the civil war coincided with Nasrallah’s rise to leadership of Hezbollah. Together, they led the “Shiite duo,” a reference to the two parties that dominated Shiite political representation and much of the state.
A diplomat who frequently visits Berri said: “He’s the trusted partner of Hezbollah, which makes him very important, but there is also a clear limit to what he can do, be it due to Hezbollah or Iranian stances.”
Israeli fire has hit areas where Berri’s Amal Movement holds sway, including the city of Tyre.

IMPROVING SHI’ITES’ STANDING
Born in 1938 in Sierra Leone to an emigrant merchant family from Tibnine, Berri was raised in Lebanon and was active in politics by the time he was at university.
Many in the once downtrodden Shiite community applaud Berri for helping improve their standing in a sectarian system where privileges were skewed toward Christians and Sunni Muslims.
A trained lawyer, Berri took the helm of Amal after its founder, Imam Musa Sadr, disappeared during a visit to Libya.
Berri was behind the military rise of Amal, which fought against nearly all the main parties to the civil war including Hezbollah, which later became an ally.
After the civil war, Berri’s Shiite followers joined the state apparatus and security agencies en masse, and he appeared to move in political lockstep with Hezbollah.
When a 2006 US embassy cable raised questions over his true feelings toward Hezbollah on its publication in 2010, he dismissed it, declaring that Nasrallah “is like myself.”
In 2023, Berri’s Amal fighters joined Hezbollah in firing rockets against Israel in solidarity with Gaza when Israel began its offensive after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Foreign envoys began visiting Beirut and meeting Berri to try to halt exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border, and sought to convince Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River running some 30 km (20 miles) north of the frontier.
Berri told one foreign official “it would be easier to move the Litani River south to the border than to push Hezbollah north of the Litani,” a source close to Berri told Reuters.
But Berri’s opponents have also criticized him as part of the sectarian elite that steered Lebanon into economic ruin in 2019, when the financial system collapsed after decades of state corruption.
Others blame him for refusing to call a parliamentary session for lawmakers to elect a president, leaving the top Christian post in government empty for more than two years.
Berri’s role as a diplomatic conduit has irked Hezbollah’s political rivals, such as the Christian Lebanese Forces, who say any negotiations must be carried out by Lebanon’s president.

BEIRUT: A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah held on Wednesday after the two sides struck a deal brokered by the US and France, a rare feat of diplomacy in the Middle East wracked by two wars and several proxy conflicts for over a year.
The agreement ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in years but Israel is still fighting its other arch foe the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Lebanon’s army, tasked with ensuring the ceasefire lasts, said it was preparing to deploy to the south of the country, a region Israel heavily bombarded in its battle against Hezbollah, along with eastern cities and towns and the armed group’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Cars and vans piled high with mattresses, suitcases and even furniture streamed through the heavily-bombed southern port city of Tyre, heading south. Fighting had escalated drastically over the past two months, forcing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes.
Israel’s military said on Wednesday its forces were still on Lebanese territory and urged residents of southern Lebanese villages who had been ordered to evacuate in recent months to delay returning home until further notice from the Israeli military. Israeli troops have pushed around 6 km (4 miles) into Lebanon in a series of ground incursions launched in September.
Israel said it identified Hezbollah operatives returning to areas near the border and had opened fire to prevent them from coming closer. There were no immediate signs that the incident would undermine the ceasefire.
The agreement, which promises to end a conflict across the Israeli-Lebanese border that has killed thousands of people since it was ignited by the Gaza war last year, is a major achievement for the US in the waning days of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Diplomatic efforts will now turn to shattered Gaza, where Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israeli communities.
Israel has said its military aim in Lebanon had been to ensure the safe return of about 60,000 Israelis who fled from their communities along the northern border when Hezbollah started firing rockets at them in support of Hamas in Gaza.
In Lebanon, some cars flew national flags, others honked, and one woman could be seen flashing the victory sign with her fingers as people started to return to homes they had fled.
Many of the villages the people were likely returning to have been destroyed.
Hussam Arrout, a father of four said he was itching to return to his home.
“The Israelis haven’t withdrawn in full, they’re still on the edge. So we decided to wait until the army announces that we can go in. Then we’ll turn the cars on immediately and go to the village,” he said.
Announcing the ceasefire, Biden spoke at the White House on Tuesday shortly after Israel’s security cabinet approved the agreement in a 10-1 vote.
“This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” Biden said. “What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again.”
Israel will gradually withdraw its forces over 60 days as Lebanon’s army takes control of territory near its border with Israel to ensure that Hezbollah does not rebuild its infrastructure there after a costly war, Biden said.
He said his administration was also pushing for an elusive ceasefire in Gaza.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the group “appreciates” Lebanon’s right to reach an agreement which protects its people, and hopes for a deal to end the Gaza war.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US would start its renewed push for a Gaza ceasefire on Wednesday.
But without a similar agreement yet in Gaza, many residents said they felt abandoned.
“We hope that all Arab and Western countries, and all people with merciful hearts and consciences...implement a truce here because we are tired,” said displaced Gazan Malak Abu Laila.
Egypt and Qatar, which along with the United States have tried unsuccessfully to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza, welcomed the Lebanon truce. Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday it hoped it would lead to a similar agreement to end the Gaza war.
Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Houthis that have attacked Israel from Yemen, said it also welcomed the ceasefire.
Israel has dealt a series of blows to Hezbollah, notably the assassination of its veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday Israeli forces fired at several vehicles with suspects to prevent them from reaching a no-go zone in Lebanese territory and the suspects moved away.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the military to “act firmly and without compromise” should it happen again.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said that the militant Lebanese group would retain the right to defend itself if Israel attacked.
The ceasefire would give the Israeli army an opportunity to rest and replenish supplies, and isolate Hamas, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We have pushed them (Hezbollah) decades back. We eliminated Nasrallah, the axis of the axis. We have taken out the organization’s top leadership, we have destroyed most of their rockets and missiles,” he said.