President Trump said on Monday that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to end their attacks on each other, and the Lebanese government said a new cease-fire between the enemies was taking shape, just hours after threats by Israel and Iran indicated that fighting would escalate.
Mr. Trump, in a social media post, said that he had spoken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and, indirectly, with Hezbollah, the armed group in Lebanon that is backed by Iran. “Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Mr. Netanyahu later issued a statement that made no mention of a new cease-fire, though he appeared to back off an immediate threat to strike Hezbollah in the southern outskirts of Beirut.
“I spoke with President Trump tonight, and told him that if Hezbollah doesn’t cease its attacks on our cities and civilians — Israel will strike terror targets in Beirut,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “This position of ours remains.” He added that the Israeli military “will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.”
Hezbollah did not comment on Mr. Trump’s statements. Lebanon’s government — which does not include or control Hezbollah — issued a statement saying that it had “received confirmation that Hezbollah had agreed to the U.S. proposal for a mutual cessation of attacks.” And a prominent Lebanese politician, Nabih Berri, who has acted as an intermediary between Hezbollah and the United States, said the group was prepared to accept a cease-fire.
The fighting had seemed poised to worsen earlier in the day, with competing threats that seemed to signal that tenuous negotiations in the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran could collapse.
The U.S. military said earlier on Monday that it had intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces in Kuwait, and that no American personnel had been harmed. Mr. Netanyahu said he had ordered the Israeli military to strike Hezbollah in the heavily populated southern outskirts of Beirut, known as Dahiya.
Iran’s military headquarters said that in retaliation for any attacks on Dahiya, there would be strikes on northern Israel, Iran’s state broadcaster reported. Iran’s military did not specify if it or one of its proxies would carry out those assaults, but it said that residents of northern Israel should evacuate.
In reaction to Israel’s military actions in Lebanon, Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported that Tehran would suspend its involvement in peace negotiations with the United States and seek “complete closure” of the Strait of Hormuz. The report sent oil prices surging.
The report by Tasnim, which is affiliated with Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, did not name a source for the claim. Comments on social media by top Iranian officials did not indicate any move to withdraw from peace talks, and Mr. Trump said on Truth Social that talks with Iran were continuing.
Despite a nominal cease-fire announced between Iran and the United States in April, both countries have continued to trade strikes, straining efforts to reach a durable peace agreement.
Late Sunday, the U.S. military said that it had attacked radar and command sites in southern Iran over the weekend in retaliation for Iran’s shooting down an American drone over international waters.
While Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the United States has obliterated Iran’s military capabilities, U.S. intelligence assessments have suggested that Iran still has significant stockpiles of missiles.
Talks aimed at ending Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, a major choke point for oil and gas shipments, and stopping the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that began in February have advanced in fits and starts. Last week, officials familiar with the negotiations said that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had agreed on a document sent to the two countries’ leaders for approval.
But Mr. Trump has since pushed to toughen the terms of the agreement, sending a revised document to Iran, according to three officials who spoke anonymously because they could not discuss the matter publicly.
In an earlier social media post on Monday, Mr. Trump claimed that Iran “really wants” a deal and suggested that criticism from Republicans and Democrats had made negotiations more difficult. “Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end — It always does!” he wrote.
Iran has said that the truce should include an end to Israeli attacks in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have been expanding their assault on Hezbollah. “The cease-fire between Iran and the U.S. is unequivocally a cease-fire on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on social media on Monday.
The United Nations Security Council called an emergency session to discuss Lebanon on Monday afternoon.
The meeting came as thousands were fleeing Beirut, fearing a new round of Israeli bombardment. For many in Dahiya, fleeing has become part of a miserable routine, honed over nearly three years of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
“I’m really exhausted by this,” said Batoul Hassan Srour, 47, who left her home in Dahiya on Monday morning for a shelter in Aramoun, north of Beirut. “It’s been nearly three years we’ve been suffering from this tension and stress. It’s enough. We’ve had enough.”
Ms. Srour said she hoped the bombardment of Dahiya would come quickly so that she could return home.
“I don’t believe in this cease-fire,” she said. “We heard this many times, but we need action, not just talk.”
Lebanon’s government vowed to continue negotiating with Israel despite Mr. Netanyahu’s earlier threat. But it has no direct power over Hezbollah, which has long overshadowed Lebanon’s government.
“Some regrettably consider negotiation to be surrender,” President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon said in a statement. “It is not that, nor is it a concession. It is a solution to stop wars with the least possible harm.”
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war started in March, after the group began firing at Israel in solidarity with Iran, days after U.S. and Israeli forces started bombing Iran. A U.S.-brokered cease-fire was announced in April but did not stop the fighting. Israel has continued to bombard southern and eastern Lebanon, as part of its most sweeping invasion of the country in decades.
Hezbollah has fired on Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and targets in northern Israel. Since early April, Israel has mostly refrained from attacking Beirut, but residents were not taking any chances on Monday.
“I lost count of how many times I’ve evacuated,” said Zahra Khomasi, 43, as she sat in her car on the outskirts of Dahiya with her with her 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. “We’ve somehow become used to this,” she said.
Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad, Heedo Abu Laban, Ravi Mattu and Michael Levenson.
