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Ceasefire after deadly strikes
Israel and Hezbollah agreed to renew a ceasefire Friday after intensified fighting in Lebanon threatened to derail US-Iran talks in Switzerland, with the escalation following the killing of four Israeli soldiers, including a battalion commander, in an attack on a tank in the Lebanese village of Kfar Tebnit.
The Washington Post reported that Israel said it struck Hezbollah targets across southern and eastern Lebanon in response to those deaths, while NBC News said President Donald Trump told NBC News in a phone call Friday afternoon that he spoke with Israel and asked them to agree to a ceasefire.
NBC News reported that Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 47 people in Lebanon since midnight, and the Lebanese health ministry reported the same figure while also reporting 97 wounded.
The BBC said Israel and Hezbollah agreed a ceasefire, a US official said, after intense Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon killed 47 people, and it added that Hezbollah killed four Israeli soldiers in Lebanon.
In the same BBC account, Israeli forces said they would "continue to remove immediate threats" after confirming a ceasefire was in effect, as clashes and strikes continued to shape the immediate context for the diplomacy.
Competing claims and quotes
Hezbollah’s position in the NBC News account came through an official Hezbollah source telling NBC News that the group would abide by the ceasefire but that the Israelis were still firing and trying to move deeper into Lebanese territory.
In the BBC report, Hezbollah’s secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said: "The project to eliminate Hezbollah has failed," while the BBC also quoted Israeli military spokesperson Effie Defrin saying Israel would "continue to remove immediate threats, respond to Hezbollah's violations, and do whatever is necessary to protect our civilians".
The BBC also captured the sharpest rhetoric from Israel’s side through National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who responded to the deaths of Israeli soldiers by saying "Lebanon must burn... For every tear shed by an Israeli mother, 1,000 Lebanese mothers must weep".
On the diplomatic track, Al Jazeera reported that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio underscored that Lebanon’s bilateral negotiations with Israel represent the only feasible path to reconstruction and ending recurrent cycles of violence, in a call with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
Al Jazeera further said the pair discussed upcoming talks scheduled for June 23 and 25 in Washington, where the two sovereign governments would make progress toward a lasting peace.
What’s at stake next
The ceasefire agreement arrived as the US-Iran memorandum of understanding faced strain from fighting in Lebanon, with Al Jazeera saying ongoing fighting has threatened to derail the US-Iran memorandum of understanding to end the war.
Al Jazeera reported that the US-Iran memorandum commits to "ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon," while it also said the Lebanese government has been seeking to disarm Hezbollah as part of a US-backed roadmap and pushed for Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
NBC News said U.S. spy agencies believe Israel will likely continue to launch attacks on Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, potentially jeopardizing a tentative peace deal between the United States and Iran.
In the BBC account, it said the overnight flare-up posed more problems for the durability of the US-Iran framework, noting that the memorandum declared a ceasefire in Lebanon as well as between the US and Iran but that the reality on the ground had led Tehran to accuse Trump of failing to rein in Israel.
DW reported that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told Rubio that a comprehensive ceasefire must be secured for talks with Israel to progress, and it quoted the Lebanese presidency’s post on X stressing "the need for Israeli attacks on Lebanese territory to cease through the achievement of a comprehensive ceasefire."
