Israeli forces struck southern Lebanon on Wednesday shortly after the US-Iran ceasefire framework came into effect, killing at least one person and wounding others. The timing was impossible to ignore the 14-point memorandum explicitly calls for a halt to hostilities in Lebanon as part of the broader deal between Washington and Tehran. Israel, which was excluded from those negotiations entirely, appears to have made its position clear without saying a word.
This is not a minor footnote. Lebanon is the deal’s most contested element, and what happens there in the coming days may determine whether the broader agreement survives its first week.
Iran has been explicit from the start: no permanent deal unless Israeli forces stop operations in Lebanon and eventually withdraw. Israel has been equally clear in the opposite direction, it retains the right to use military force and has no intention of pulling back from positions it holds in the south. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi put it bluntly, saying that “without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end.” That contradiction was baked into the agreement from the moment it was signed, and Wednesday’s strikes brought it into sharp focus.
Trump addressed the tension at the G7 summit in France, stopping short of directly criticizing Netanyahu but making his frustration visible. “I say you can do a little softer touch, Bibi,” he told reporters. “You don’t have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah has not stood down either. The group launched drone attacks on Israeli forces in the south on Wednesday, with a first-person view drone exploding next to a tank near Kfar Tebnit at around 6am, injuring five Israeli soldiers according to the Israeli military. Lebanese state media reported air strikes and artillery fire across multiple southern towns including Mansouri, Aaziyyeh and Barashit throughout the day.
The G7 issued a joint statement calling for an “immediate robust ceasefire” in Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah. How that demand gets enforced and by whom remains entirely unanswered. There is no mechanism in the current framework that compels Israel to comply, and Washington has so far stopped well short of applying real pressure on its ally.
The US and Iran have 60 days to turn this memorandum into something permanent. If Lebanon isn’t resolved, that deadline may not matter much.
