G7 ministers weigh Lebanon ceasefire push and ICC fallout near Rome
Event date: 2024-11-25. Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven met in Fiuggi and Anagni, Italy, with Lebanon, Gaza and the International Criminal Court at the center of the agenda. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he was optimistic that a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon could still be reached, even as he warned the effort was more difficult than the push to end the war in Gaza.
The talks brought together US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Japan and Italy. According to the evidence packet, the ministers were also trying to settle language around the ICC arrest warrants issued days earlier for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif. Tajani said the group was working to find an agreement on wording for its final statement.
That search for a common line reflected deeper divisions. Israel and its allies denounced the ICC decision, while Turkey and rights groups welcomed it. Some countries said they would comply with the warrants and arrest Netanyahu if he entered their territory; others were still weighing their response. Tajani said he believed negotiations with Netanyahu were still necessary to reach peace in Lebanon and Palestine, even if there was not agreement with the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.
The meeting was not limited to the Middle East. A second session was scheduled to include ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, along with the Arab League secretary general. On Tuesday, the same G7 format was due to turn to Ukraine, with Andriy Sybiga attending. Italian officials said that discussion would cover continued support for Kyiv, prospects for peace and future reconstruction.
The foreign ministers also met against a broader background of geopolitical strain. The packet says the G7 talks came after Donald Trump’s US election win, and that Britain announced its biggest sanctions package yet against Russia’s shadow fleet. Italy also invited foreign ministers from South Korea, India, Indonesia and the Philippines to discuss Asia-Pacific tensions, while Haiti, Sudan and Venezuela were also on the agenda. The result was a summit built around overlapping crises rather than a single diplomatic track.
For the G7, the immediate challenge was how to keep pressure on the wars in Lebanon and Gaza while avoiding a public split over the ICC. Tajani’s remarks suggested a familiar balancing act: support for diplomacy, concern about escalation and a reluctance to close the door on talks with leaders under international legal pressure.
The meeting showed how closely the G7 agenda was tied to the same set of wars and legal disputes. With diplomacy, sanctions and ICC warrants all in the frame, the ministers were trying to manage both battlefield pressure and political division. That made the final statement as important as the closed-door talks themselves, because wording would signal whether the group could present a shared line at all.
