Israeli Warplanes Strike Southern Lebanon Despite Trump Ceasefire Agreement

Israeli warplanes launched dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon despite a new agreement that Donald Trump said was brokered to bolster the ceasefire, and Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported 30 Israeli strikes across the south on Tuesday.

Near Sidon, rescuers recovered the bodies of six members of the same family, including two children and a woman, after an Israeli strike, while the Israeli military issued a new evacuation warning for Nabatiyeh before new strikes.

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Trump said on Monday that he had stopped an imminent Israeli strike on Beirut and that he had spoken to Benjamin Netanyahu and representatives of Hezbollah and agreed that “all shooting will stop”.

Hezbollah has not claimed any recent strikes in Israel and said instead it attacked Israeli troops who have pushed into Lebanon to establish a security zone between 5 and 10 kilometres wide, as Netanyahu cited “repeated violations” of a ceasefire officially in place since 17 April.

The latest round of conflict in Lebanon began when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on 2 March in retaliation for its killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a wave of airstrikes carried out on the first day of the US-Israeli offensive against Iran.

Trump posted on Truth Social that “hopefully” Israel and Hezbollah would stop fighting “for ETERNITY!”, while the Lebanese presidency said in a statement that “Israel’s strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs will cease, and in exchange Hezbollah will not attack Israel.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had told Trump that “if Hezbollah does not cease attacking our towns and our citizens, Israel will strike terrorist targets in Beirut,” and the Israeli military warned residents of the southern suburbs to flee to “preserve their safety.”

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The Associated Press reported that Netanyahu confirmed the call with Trump but cast it less as restraint and more as a warning, saying Israel would strike targets in Beirut if Hezbollah’s attacks do not stop.

In Washington, Lebanese negotiators hoped to widen the scope of areas that will not be attacked in the country as they seek a complete ceasefire, while the AP said talks between Israel and Lebanon were scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington.

Iran’s position remained a sticking point, with the AP noting that Tehran wants any agreement to include Lebanon and that Hezbollah has rejected direct talks, counting on pressure from Iran.

The fighting has displaced more than one million people in Lebanon, and the Taipei Times said the truce to halt the fighting began on April 17 but has never been observed.

“United States President Donald Trump says Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to halt attacks following indirect talks through intermediaries”

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Lebanon’s health ministry figures cited by the Taipei Times put Israeli attacks since March 2 at “at least 3,433 people” killed, while the Israeli military said two of its soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon, bringing to 27 the number of Israeli military deaths since early March.

Hezbollah’s senior official Mahmoud Qmati told AFP on Tuesday that the group “will not accept a partial ceasefire,” adding that “any aggression against the [southern] suburbs [of Beirut] could lead to a deeper and stronger response” from the group.

In the diplomatic track, a senior Lebanese official told Reuters that the objective of Washington talks would be to agree on actionable and sustainable ways to reinforce the ceasefire, including “pilot zones” where hostilities would stop and Israeli troops would withdraw.

The Guardian also framed the stakes for Washington’s broader diplomacy, saying a deal to reduce or stop levels of violence between Israel and Hezbollah would support Washington’s efforts to reach a new ceasefire agreement with Iran.