Israel and Hezbollah trade new attacks despite Trump promise of de-escalatoion

Summary

The Israeli military launched deadly new strikes in Lebanon on Tuesday after reporting attacks from Hezbollah overnight, despite President Donald Trump saying both sides had agreed to de-escalate after Iran threatened to pull out of peace talks. Trump said Monday night that he had spoken with both sides and that they agreed “all shooting will stop” after Tehran signaled that Israel’s intensifying military operations in Lebanon could derail efforts to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Talks with Tehran were ongoing, Trump said. The Lebanese Embassy in Washington said Hezbollah had accepted the terms of a U.S. proposal for a “mutual cessation of attacks,” which would also block Israel from attacking Beirut. Its threat to do so had sparked panic in the Lebanese capital, after the U.S. ally’s deepest incursion into its neighbor in 26 years. But despite the claims of a renewed ceasefire, clashes continued Tuesday morning. Israel continued to launch its own strikes on Lebanon, with the Lebanese Civil Defense agency saying on its Facebook page Tuesday that six people had been killed in an Israeli strike on Monday night in the village of Marwaniyeh in southern Lebanon. It was not clear exactly when that strike was launched. Lebanon’s civil defense said Tuesday that one of its centers, in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, had been subject to “direct targeting as a result of a hostile Israeli airstrike.” It said the building was damaged, along with equipment inside of it. The Lebanese Army later reported that two soldiers had been moderately wounded as a result of being targeted by an Israeli hostile drone in Nabatieh. The Israeli military told NBC News that it had launched at least one strike in Nabatieh, but said it was targeting Hezbollah infrastructure. It said earlier that it had intercepted at least two projectiles overnight that had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with no injuries reported. Hours later it said sirens had sounded in northern Israel and that it had identified a “suspicious aerial target” in an area where Israeli soldiers were operating in southern Lebanon. Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Monday that he had a “very productive” call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and that there would be “no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back.” Trump lashed out at Netanyahu and called him “crazy” in the “expletive-laden” call, Axios reported, citing multiple sources. The White House and Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News. The call came after Netanyahu said he had ordered strikes on “terror targets” in Beirut’s southern suburbs in response to attacks from Hezbollah. That sparked panicked scenes with people rushing to flee the capital, where thousands of displaced Lebanese sought shelter after being displaced from their homes in the south by Israel’s aerial and ground assault. Netanyahu later posted on X that Israel would strike Beirut if Hezbollah attacks do not stop. Trump said he also had a “very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop — That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.” The call appeared to mark the first time a U.S. president has communicated either directly or through intermediaries with Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Trump’s intervention came after Iran threatened to abandon negotiations with the U.S. that had seemed on the verge of a deal just a week ago. “The Iranian negotiating team will suspend ‘talks and the exchange of texts through mediators,’” the semiofficial news agency Tasnim reported on Monday in the wake of Israel’s declared plan to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri that Iran might retaliate if Israeli attacks in Lebanon continued. “Over the past two days, we have seriously pursued efforts to stop Israel’s attacks. If these crimes continue, we will not only suspend the negotiation process, but we will also stand against the Zionist regime,” Ghalibaf warned, according to the state-owned Islamic Republic News Agency. “If an agreement is reached to end the war between Iran and the United States, it will include a halt to attacks on all fronts, especially in Lebanon,” he said. Trump told NBC News that he was not informed of the decision to suspend negotiations ahead of time but that “I think it’s fine if they’re done talking.” “It’s an appropriate thing to say, because they’re better negotiators than they are fighters,” he said in a brief phone call. “But they haven’t informed us of that.” “Talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the president said in a subsequent Truth Social post.