Wars 2023 10/08 Monitoring the Israel and Lebanon War

Wars 2023 10/08 Monitoring the Israel and Lebanon War
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No point in US talks after Beirut strike: Iran

Trump vows ME deal is on, calls for no more attacks

Agence France-Presse . Tehran, Iran 14 June, 2026, 19:25

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People look for survivors at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday. | AFP photo

Iran said on Sunday there was ‘no point’ in peace talks with the United States, accusing it of failing to uphold its commitments and casting doubt on a deal that Donald Trump had insisted would be signed imminently.

Trump on Sunday said Israeli strikes on Beirut ‘should not have happened’ as he vowed a regional peace deal was at hand, though he did not confirm his earlier claim it would be signed during the day.

‘We are very close to a Deal that will bring peace to the region, including to Lebanon, and all sides should stand down,’ Trump said on social media.

‘This could be the beginning of a long and beautiful peace — Let’s not blow it!’

Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday, killing three people, in response to what it said was Hezbollah fire at northern Israel, an exchange that Trump said ‘should not disrupt’ progress towards a pact.

‘This morning’s attack on Beirut should not have happened, particularly on a special day,’ Trump wrote, possibly a reference to his hopes of a signing on Sunday, his 80th birthday.

‘There should be no more attacks by Israel anywhere in Lebanon, but there should also be no more attacks by any other party, including Hezbollah, against Israel.’

Trump — who has repeatedly declared a deal with Iran was all but concluded — had said on Saturday that the framework accord was scheduled to be signed on Sunday.

The latest hurdle came hours after Israel — which launched the war alongside the US in February — said its military had carried out strikes targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

‘The Zionists’ aggression against Dahieh once again showed that the United States either lacks the will to implement its commitments or lacks the ability to do so,’ Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on X, referring to the suburbs.

‘If you do not have the will or the ability to fulfil your commitments, then there is no point in talking about continuing down this path.’

Trump — who over weeks of negotiations repeatedly declared a deal with Iran was all but concluded — had said on Saturday that the accord was ‘scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL’.

But Iran has insisted that any agreement to end the Middle East war also include the parallel conflict in Lebanon, and Israel’s last strikes on the Lebanese capital a week ago drew a retaliatory Iranian missile barrage.

Iranian Brigadier General Mohammad Jafar Asadi said the latest Israeli strikes ‘will not go unanswered’.

A US official said Friday that the deal on the table included Lebanon, which was drawn into the wider war when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on March 2.

A statement from the foreign ministry of Pakistan, which has been a key mediator between the warring parties, had also said that the deal’s signing was planned for Sunday.

But Iran’s Fars news agency, citing ‘a well-informed source close to the Iranian negotiating team’, reported Sunday that Tehran had ‘not yet taken or announced its final decision’.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei had said the day before that the deal would not be signed Sunday, but added: ‘The possibility of this happening in the coming days cannot be ruled out.’

A delegation from fellow mediator Qatar arrived in Tehran on Sunday ‘to help facilitate the finalisation of the agreement’, a diplomat with knowledge of the situation said.

The warring parties have released conflicting information about the contents of the deal, as each seeks to show it emerged from the war with the upper hand.

Tehran has insisted it will maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz, but the US has repeatedly said this would be unacceptable.

Since imposing its blockade on the strait — which has thrown global markets into turmoil — Iran has demanded vessels obtain permission from its armed forces before transiting the waterway, and has established a new body to oversee it and collect tolls.

The US has responded with its own blockade of Iranian ports.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had said on Friday that the deal on the table called for the lifting of the US naval blockade.

Another key sticking point in the talks has been the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme, particularly its stockpile of highly enriched uranium — believed to have been buried by US strikes last year.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful, but the US, Israel and other Western governments suspect it of seeking a bomb.

Araghchi on Friday said the only way to deal with Iran’s enriched uranium ‘is to dilute it inside Iran’.

Trump, who has justified the war as necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, previously said the US would remove and destroy the uranium.

On Saturday, he said: ‘When all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust... and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran or the United States.’

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Trump had promised him any agreement would include the removal of the enriched nuclear material.

On Sunday, Israel’s military issued evacuation warnings for 29 villages in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu’s office later said the military had carried out strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs against Hezbollah targets ‘in response to Hezbollah’s firing towards Israeli territory’.

The military said it had struck a Hezbollah infrastructure site, while Lebanese state media said a strike hit the Ghobeiry neighbourhood.

Lebanon’s civil defence agency said the strike killed at least three people and wounded six others.

Israel’s military had reported that three drones, suspected to have been launched by Hezbollah, struck northern Israel on Sunday but caused no casualties.​
 

Iran threatens ‘harsh response’ to Israeli attacks in Lebanon
Agence France-Presse . Tehran, Iran 17 June, 2026, 01:41


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People make their way through the heavily damaged historic market of Nabatieh as residents displaced by the fighting return to southern Lebanon on Monday.

Iran’s military threatened on Tuesday to respond to Israel after strikes in southern Lebanon killed four people despite a deal between Tehran and Washington ending the war, including in Lebanon.

‘If the child-killing army of the Zionist regime does not put an end to its acts of aggression in southern Lebanon, it should await a harsh response from the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,’ said the Iranian military’s central command Khatam al-Anbiya.

It added that Israel had violated the ceasefire in Lebanon ‘84 times’ since the deal was announced.​
 

Israel, Hezbollah agree to ceasefire starting on Friday, US official says

REUTERS

Published :
Jun 19, 2026 19:08
Updated :
Jun 19, 2026 19:10

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Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Kfartibnit, Lebanon, June 19, 2026. Photo : REUTERS/Stringer

Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a ‌ceasefire set to begin at 4 p.m. local time on Friday, a senior ⁠US official told Reuters.

“Hezbollah and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire,” the official said on background, adding that negotiators for ‌the ⁠US and Qataris worked out the deal with help from Iran. “We ⁠understand that after the exchange of fire earlier ⁠today, Israel and Hezbollah are ⁠now in a ceasefire.”​
 

Lebanon state media says five dead in fresh Israeli strikes on south

AFP
Beirut, Lebanon

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Smoke rises from the site of a string of Israeli airstrikes that targeted the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh on 20 June, 2026. AFP

Lebanese official media said fresh Israeli strikes on the country's south on Saturday killed five people, despite a new ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group announced a day earlier.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli airstrikes on more than a dozen south Lebanon locations after midnight and into Saturday morning, many in and around the Nabatieh area.

It also reported Israeli artillery shelling on Nabatieh city and its outskirts, a region where fighting has been focused in recent days.

The NNA said three people were killed in airstrikes on the town of Arab Salim, while one person was killed in Deir Zahrani, and another after "an enemy drone launched a strike on a motorbike" at the entrance of the town of Dweir.

On Friday, a US official told AFP an immediate truce between Israel and Hezbollah had been brokered by US and Qatari mediators following talks with Israel and Iran. A Gulf diplomat confirmed the ceasefire.

Israel's ambassador to the US said his country would commit to the ceasefire if Hezbollah respected it.

Previous truce announcements have done little to stop attacks from either side.

The announcement came as Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli airstrikes and bombardment on the country's south and east killed 47 people on Friday, the worst violence since Washington and Tehran this week sealed a deal to halt the wider Middle East war.

That agreement was supposed to also halt fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel's military on Friday said four of its soldiers were killed, and reported more than 150 strikes on Lebanon, killing "dozens of Hezbollah terrorists".

Also on Friday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that a comprehensive ceasefire was needed in order for talks with Israel to progress.

Under US pressure, Lebanon in April began direct talks with Israel in Washington aimed at ending the hostilities and separating the Israel-Hezbollah conflict from the regional war.

A fifth round of talks is due to begin on Tuesday, according to the State Department.

US officials including President Donald Trump have expressed frustration at Israel's campaign in Lebanon.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday reiterated that Israeli troops would stay in south Lebanon "as long as necessary".

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in early March with rocket fire at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.

Israel responded with a massive campaign of airstrikes and a ground invasion.​
 

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