In an interview with CNN Sunday, Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, broadcast a plea to the government and people of Israel: End the war, which will ultimately fail to deliver your objectives.

War “will never provide you with security and safety,” he said, directly addressing the Israelis. “We are ready, we are willing, we are committed. Are you? If you are, let’s sit and talk.”

“We are fed up and we want to live in peace,” the president said. The Lebanese people “deserve to live in peace and in dignity. They deserve not seeing their homes being destroyed every five to 10 years.”

“They [Israel] can invade the whole country, they can flatten the whole country, but they will never be able to achieve their objective,” he added, without explaining how Israel should instead react to Hezbollah’s indiscriminate drone and missile strikes against Israel.

While Beirut and Jerusalem have engaged in direct talks, Aoun has not yet spoken directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said that would not happen until an agreement to end the war is reached. He cautioned that such an agreement would not be a full-fledged peace deal but would be more like a non-aggression pact.

“We need to end the state of hostility between Lebanon and Israel. Forever. And this (pact) could be a path forward for a just and lasting peace,” he said.

The Lebanese leader said that normalization of ties would be established only when Israel implements a two-state solution to resolve its own conflict with Arabs in Gaza and the territories.

Aoun also accused Iran of using Hezbollah as a bargaining chip in its negotiations with the United States, to the detriment of the Lebanese people.

Israeli officials have argued that despite the president’s apparent desire for peace, his government has shown neither the willingness nor the ability to restrain Hezbollah and seize back its sovereignty over areas controlled by the terror group.