US president Donald Trump on Monday night declared a new ceasefire in Lebanon, after the continuing conflict between Israel and Hizbullah had threatened to once again drag the entire region into another war.
Trump’s announcement appeared to have prevented, at the last minute, a large Israeli strike planned on Beirut.
“I had a very productive conversation, and there will be no soldiers arriving in Beirut, and any soldier who was on the way has already turned back,” Trump wrote after a telephone conversation with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
“Also, through senior representatives, I had a very good conversation with Hizbullah, and they agreed that all firing will stop – that Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”
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Shortly after he also claimed “talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
His comments came after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned residents of Beirut’s Dahiyeh quarter, a Hizbullah stronghold, to evacuate. Iran threatened to attack northern Israel in retaliation.
Thousands of families, fearing an Israeli strike, crammed into cars and fled the Lebanese capital, causing large traffic jams on exit roads.
The Iranian counter-threat was not long in coming. “If this threat is carried out, we warn residents of the northern regions in Israel to leave the area if they do not want to be harmed,” an Iranian statement said.
With tensions mounting, parliament speaker Nabih Berri, one of the most senior Shia politicians in Lebanon, indicated that Hizbullah was ready for an immediate and full ceasefire with Israel and he was willing to provide guarantees for its implementation.
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Iran’s state television had already warned on Monday that the probability of the ceasefire between Iran and the United States ending was high if Israeli attacks on Lebanon do not stop.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported the Iranian negotiating team was stopping message exchanges with Washington through mediators over Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, putting in jeopardy the efforts to reach a memorandum of understanding and a 60-day ceasefire extension.
According to Tasnim, which is linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran was suspending truce contacts until its demands on the cessation of Israeli operations in Lebanon and Gaza were met.
Tasnim added that Iran and its proxies will look to completely block the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, off the Yemen coast.
Trump told NBC that he had not heard from Iran on any suspension of talks.
The fragile truce was already under pressure after US forces on Monday downed two Iranian missiles fired at an American base in Kuwait – the latest incident of almost daily clashes in the region.
The US had forced Israel to refrain from attacking Beirut in recent weeks – with a few exceptions – to avoid jeopardising efforts to clinch an agreement to end the war between the US, Israel and Iran. However, Iran had linked a ceasefire in the Gulf to a parallel truce in Lebanon.
“The ceasefire between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts,” Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said.
Israel rejects linkage between the two fronts, insisting on the right to attack Hizbullah to remove the threat to its northern border.
Israeli tanks have advanced north of the Beaufort castle, the strategic crusader fortress which was captured by the IDF on Sunday. Hizbullah continued its barrage of rockets and drones into northern Israel, hitting areas relatively far from Israel’s northern border.
