The seventh round of US-sponsored talks between Lebanon and Israel had stretched into a third day in Rome when the discussion turned to one of the most sensitive issues between the two countries: Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.
Lebanon wanted them released. Israel, however, tied progress on the issue to demands reaching back more than four decades, asking Beirut to locate the remains of Lebanese Jews killed or disappeared during the civil war and provide answers about Ron Arad, an Israeli airman who vanished after his aircraft went down over Lebanon in 1986.
For the Lebanese delegation, the problem was fundamental: Beirut says it does not possess the information Israel is demanding and may have no means of obtaining it.
"Israel demanded during the negotiations the return of the remains of Lebanese Jews killed during the civil war, and to know the fate of those who went missing, in addition to revealing the fate of the Israeli pilot Ron Arad or handing over his remains," an official Lebanese source told The New Arab.
"These are demands that the Lebanese delegation considered extremely difficult, and closer to impossible conditions, especially since Lebanon has no information about them," the source added.
The conditions have further complicated negotiations already strained by Israel's continuing military operations in Lebanon and its occupation of Lebanese territory. They have also transformed what Beirut regards as a present-day humanitarian issue into a search for answers buried in some of the most chaotic years of Lebanon's civil war.
"We know that Israel is trying to put obstacles in more than one place, and the negotiations are certainly not easy, and the process is long," the Lebanese source said.
"But there is Lebanese insistence on holding to its demands, whether in terms of releasing all prisoners, completely stopping military operations, or Israel withdrawing from all Lebanese territory."
A prisoner deal tied to decades-old remains
The Lebanese government has disclosed relatively little about what happened inside the Rome talks, saying publicly only that progress had been made on the prisoner and border files.
Lebanese and Israeli reports, however, described discussions over a possible arrangement under which remains of Jews buried in Lebanon, particularly in Jewish cemeteries in Beirut's Wadi Abu Jamil neighbourhood and the southern city of Sidon, would be transferred in exchange for Lebanese civilians held by Israel.
Israel was also reported to have divided the Lebanese detainees into categories, distinguishing civilians from fighters and Hezbollah members, raising the prospect that some could be released while others remained in Israeli custody.
The question of remains has a basis in the framework agreement signed by Lebanon and Israel on 26 June. Article 13 called for efforts to locate and return remains and release detainees, but did not specify whose remains were being discussed, leaving the provision open to vastly different interpretations.
Israel has now brought Arad into that discussion. The Israeli airman disappeared after his aircraft went down over Lebanon in 1986, and successive Israeli governments have spent decades trying to determine his fate.
In March, Israeli forces carried out a raid in Nabi Chit in eastern Lebanon as part of their search for information about him, but failed to locate either Arad or his remains.
By raising his case alongside those of Lebanese Jews who disappeared during the civil war, Israel has effectively tied the release of people currently in its custody to Beirut's ability to resolve disappearances dating to the 1980s.
Thirty-four Lebanese prisoners
The Lebanese Association for Prisoners and Liberated Prisoners says it has documented 34 Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.
Three cases predate the latest conflict: Yahya Mohammed Skaf, whose case dates to 1978; Abdullah Khalil Alyan, missing since 1981; and Mohammed Adel al-Farran, a fisherman who disappeared in 2005.
Of the remaining 31, 12 are resistance fighters, including two nurses, while the others are civilians taken from their homes, according to Ahmed Taleb, the association's president.
"Of the 31 prisoners, there are 12 resistance fighters, including two nurses, and the rest are civilians who were abducted from their homes," Taleb told The New Arab.
Another 37 people who were near the front line from 2024 onwards remain unaccounted for, according to Taleb, leaving their families uncertain whether they are imprisoned, dead or whether their bodies are being held by Israel.
Against that uncertainty, Israel's reported attempt to distinguish between civilians and fighters has caused particular concern among groups representing the prisoners.
"This file is humanitarian, and it is not permissible to distinguish in this way between a civilian, a [Hezbollah] member and a fighter," Taleb said.
He added that neither his organisation nor the families had been consulted about the negotiations.
"No official body has contacted the association or the prisoners' families, and everything that reaches us about what happened in the Rome negotiations comes from the media," he said.
Taleb also disputed suggestions that Beirut lacked a definitive list of prisoners, saying the association handed the names to President Joseph Aoun in December 2025.
A demand involving Lebanese citizens
Particularly contentious is Israel's reported demand concerning 11 Lebanese Jews, people who were Lebanese citizens rather than Israelis.
"The Israeli is demanding, according to what has been reported, the remains of 11 Lebanese Jews, and these are Lebanese, not Israelis, and it has no right to demand them," Taleb said.
"From here, we consider that raising this file in the first place falls within the framework of impossible conditions."
The demand reaches into one of the murkiest periods of Lebanon's civil war, when the central government's authority had collapsed across much of the country and kidnappings, assassinations and disappearances were widespread.
Between 1984 and 1987, several prominent members of Lebanon's Jewish community were kidnapped in central Beirut, particularly around Qantari and Wadi Abu Jamil, historically a centre of Jewish life in the capital.
They included Salim Mourad Jamous, a former secretary-general of the Jewish community; Isaac Sasson, its president; Elie Hallak, its vice-president; and businessman Elie Srour.
Their kidnappings were attributed to a group calling itself the Organisation of the Oppressed on Earth, which announced that some of the men had been executed. Four decades later, the whereabouts of their remains are still unknown.
That history is central to why Lebanese sources regard Israel's condition as so difficult to satisfy. Israel is not merely asking Beirut to transfer known remains. It is asking the Lebanese state to establish the fate and whereabouts of people who disappeared during a war in which the government had little or no control over large parts of its own capital.
Asking today's Lebanon to solve the mysteries of the civil war
Khaled al-Hajj, a researcher and political writer, said the passage of four decades had made establishing what happened to the missing extraordinarily difficult.
"Among those kidnapped were Lebanese Jews whose remains are unknown, as is the case with Ron Arad, which makes the task of knowing their fate or identifying them after this long period of time extremely difficult," Hajj told The New Arab.
"The Lebanese state is not responsible for them, and if the party was responsible, then those responsible would certainly have been from its first generation, most of whom were targeted by Israel, unless information remained as part of military secrets."
Lebanon's civil war left thousands of people from different communities missing. Many of their families still do not know where they were killed or buried, meaning Israel is effectively asking the Lebanese state to resolve cases that Lebanon has been unable to resolve even for many of its own citizens.
Hajj also questioned Israel's claim to the remains of Lebanese Jews simply because some of their relatives later lived in Israel.
"The Israeli is demanding the remains of Jews in cemeteries in Beirut on the grounds that they have families in Israel," Hajj said.
"But in form and substance, it is demanding Lebanese citizens, from well-known families who lived in what was called 'West Beirut' during the civil war, such as the Hallak and Srour families and others who denied belonging to the Israeli Mossad."
Israel was additionally demanding that Lebanon search for their remains, Hajj said, "and this is an impossible condition given the long period of time that has passed".
Decades of prisoner exchanges
Prisoners and remains have repeatedly been exchanged between Israel and Lebanon, including during periods of open conflict.
In July 2008, Israel released Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar after nearly 29 years in prison as part of an exchange with Hezbollah. Israel received the remains of two soldiers captured at the beginning of the 2006 Lebanon war.
The exchange also returned the remains of Lebanese and Palestinian fighters, although the identities of some were disputed. Families maintained, for example, that the remains of Palestinian fighter Dalal Mughrabi and Yahya Skaf had not been conclusively returned.
Other Lebanese cases remain unresolved. Alyan's fate is unknown, while al-Farran disappeared in 2005. His bloodstained boat was subsequently handed to the Lebanese army through UNIFIL. Israel said it had found the boat empty, according to Taleb, who argues that Israel bears responsibility for establishing his fate because its forces had fired at it.
Those cases underscore the imbalance now at the heart of the negotiations.
Lebanon is seeking the release of people currently held by Israel, an end to ongoing Israeli military operations and a withdrawal from Lebanese territory. Israel, meanwhile, has tied movement on the prisoner file to Beirut producing remains, information and answers from a civil war that ended more than 35 years ago.
Some of those answers may no longer exist.
Lebanese officials have consequently described the Israeli conditions as "closer to impossible", warning that a humanitarian prisoner file risks becoming hostage to demands that the Lebanese state has no realistic means of fulfilling.
Rita El Jammal is a journalist and reporter for Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, The New Arab's Arabic-language sister publication