Despite an agreement announced by US President Donald Trump on a pause in fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, both parties to the conflict have continued their attacks. According to Lebanese information on Tuesday, nine people were killed in Israeli attacks in the south of the country. The pro-Iranian Hezbollah also launched new attacks against Israel. According to a report, a scandal broke out between Trump and Netanyahu in view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Lebanon strategy.
According to the Civil Defense, six people were killed in an Israeli attack on a residential building in the village of Marwanijeh in southern Lebanon on Monday evening. The Israeli army had previously warned residents in Marvaniyeh of impending attacks and called on them to evacuate. According to the Lebanese state news agency, a father and his two adult children were also killed in a town near the border with Israel on Monday. The Israeli army said it intercepted two projectiles fired from Lebanon on Tuesday night. Hezbollah, for its part, said it had fired a rocket at an Israeli tank in southern Lebanon.
Trump said on Monday that he had persuaded Netanyahu and Hezbollah to de-escalate. “No (Israeli) troops will be sent to Beirut, and all troops that are already on the way have already been ordered back,” Trump wrote after a phone call with Netanyahu. “I also had a very good conversation with Hezbollah through high-ranking representatives,” explained the US President. “They agreed that all exchanges of fire would cease – that Israel would not attack them and they would not attack Israel.”
Katz: Israel has the backing of the USA
Despite Trump’s announcement, Netanyahu threatened further attacks on the Lebanese capital Beirut if Hezbollah continued its attacks on Israel. “I spoke to President Trump this evening and told him that if Hezbollah does not stop its attacks on our cities and our citizens, Israel will attack terrorist targets in Beirut,” Netanyahu said. In addition, the Israeli army will “continue its operations in southern Lebanon as planned.”
According to a report by the US news portal Axios, Trump accused the Israeli head of government in the phone call of endangering negotiations to end the Iran war with his actions in Lebanon. The US President insulted Netanyahu as “completely crazy”.
However, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reiterated on Tuesday that Israel had received US backing for possible attacks on a Hezbollah stronghold in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahijeh. “Either the shelling of Israeli towns stops, or – if the shelling continues – we will strike in Dahijeh,” Katz said, according to his ministry.
The Iranian news agency Tasnim reported on Monday that Tehran had suspended negotiations to end the Iran war in view of Israel’s “ongoing crimes” in Lebanon. Trump contradicted the information from Iran. “The talks with the Islamic Republic of Iran are continuing at a rapid pace,” he emphasized in his online service Truth Social.
In an effort to find a peace solution, representatives from Israel and Lebanon want to meet again in Washington on Tuesday. At the last round of talks in mid-May, both sides agreed to extend the ceasefire by 45 days.
