Jerusalem: US President Donald Trump on Sunday urged no further attacks by anyone after Israel’s military said it launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, potentially complicating efforts to finalise a deal to end the US-Iran war.
Smoke rose over the Lebanese capital, and the Civil Defence said it retrieved three bodies and six wounded people from the rubble.
Iran threatened a military response. Trump reacted on social media: “We are very close to a Deal that will bring peace to the region,” and “Let’s not blow it!”
The deal in its current form is a deep disappointment to Israel’s government, which has been sidelined in negotiations led by Pakistan and others. The last time Israel struck the Beirut suburbs a week ago, it set off the most serious escalation of fighting between Iran and Israel since the tenuous ceasefire took hold April 7.
Trump, who had said the deal could be signed Sunday, has pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop hitting Lebanon hard while a deal is near, but the prime minister has defied him.
Netanyahu’s office said the strikes were in response to Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel. Israel’s military said Hezbollah launched three projectiles, releasing footage where an audible boom was followed by rising smoke. There was no immediate comment from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
“Israel will not tolerate firing into its territory,” Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. The military later said it was preparing for potential incoming fire in the coming hours.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene in Beirut said a five-story apartment building with shops on the ground floor was struck. The two lowest floors were the most heavily damaged. Residents of the southern suburbs, many of whom had returned home after weeks of relative calm, could be seen fleeing.
Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel on March 2, two days after the US and Israel attacked Iran, sparking war in the Middle East. Israeli troops have since pushed their invasion of Lebanon deeper than at any point in over a quarter century.
Iran wants a ceasefire deal to include the fighting in Lebanon.
Mediators push Iran and the US closer to a deal
Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a lead negotiator for Tehran, warned the US on X after Israel’s strikes that “if you lack the will and ability to fulfill your commitments, speaking of continuing the path is not possible.”
“Without a doubt, these crimes will not go unanswered,” said Gen. Mohammad Jafar Asadi, deputy commander of Iran’s Joint Command Headquarters, the official Mizan news agency reported.
Qatari mediators travelled to Tehran on Sunday to finalise the agreement, according to two regional officials.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, expressed cautious optimism that the US and Iran were finally approaching a deal that could halt hostilities that have killed thousands of people and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure has thrown world markets into disarray.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Saturday the deal would be signed Sunday, while Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said it could happen in the coming days. Trump said the Strait of Hormuz would open immediately after the signing.
The deal is expected to be signed electronically, without an in-person ceremony, though it’s unclear when or how the signing will take place.
Iran’s government warned that any division at home over the deal weakens its negotiating position, and those criticizing negotiators are taking aim at a national decision. Iranians must recognize that no war lasts forever, spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency.
Nuclear and other issues still to be finalised
The deal does not solve the thorniest issues between the US and Iran, including Iran’s nuclear program or its billions of dollars in frozen funds, but offers a 60-day framework for technical discussions on those issues, according to Pakistani and regional officials familiar with the ongoing negotiations. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.
The officials described Pakistan’s effort leading the negotiations, struggling for months to keep both sides from walking out on multiple occasions.
Under the deal being discussed, US and Israel appear to have fallen short of their original goals of destroying Iran’s missile and nuclear programs and ending its support for armed proxies in the region. It is not clear how the deal will address these issues, or if they will be part of the final agreement.
Iran’s nuclear program and highly enriched uranium have long been at the centre of tensions with the US and Israel and an international source of concern. Trump on social media asserted Saturday that “when all is calm,” the US would go in and “downblend and destroy” the enriched uranium in Iran or in the US.
Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful and has not publicly committed to giving up the enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under three nuclear sites that were badly damaged by US strikes last year.
Critics in Trump’s Republican Party, struggling with an unpopular war ahead of the midterm elections, have criticized the emerging deal. Some said it did not improve on the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump withdrew the US. from during his first term and which he still describes as “bad.”
Meanwhile, Trump was expected to discuss demining the Strait of Hormuz during the Group of Seven summit that starts Monday.
