Middle East crisis live: Iran threatens ‘harsh response’ if Israel fails to cease attacks in Lebanon
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Iran’s military has threatened to respond to Israel after strikes in southern Lebanon killed four people, despite an agreement being reached between Tehran and Washington to end the Middle East war, including in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported Israeli warplanes targeting the southern town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa and a drone strike in Ansariyeh on the coast this morning. There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on the reports.
In an update yesterday, the IDF said it intercepted “several rockets” launched by Hezbollah towards its troops operating in southern Lebanon, and that it struck and destroyed the launcher.
Hezbollah has not issued any recent statements claiming attacks on Israeli targets in southern Lebanon. The group’s leader, Naim Qassem, is due to make a televised address today, according to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV.
The Iranian military’s central command Khatam al-Anbiya said Israel must halt its acts of aggression in the south or face “a harsh response” from its forces. It accused Israel of violating the ceasefire in Lebanon “84 times” since the deal was announced.
Iran’s top diplomat and foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said a peace deal with the US would require Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. “Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end, ” he said.
Concerns have been growing that Israel could undermine diplomatic efforts to finally end the Middle East war, with Donald Trump criticising his ally and war partner as irresponsible.
“Israel has been fighting Hezbollah for too long and too many people are being killed, ” Trump said. “You don’t need to knock down an apartment house when you are looking for somebody because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they are not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.”
A US-Iran deal aimed at ending the Middle East war will be signed at Switzerland’s mountainside Burgenstock resort on Friday, the Swiss foreign ministry confirmed to AFP. The site, located near Lucerne in central Switzerland, is difficult to access and therefore easily secured. It “was proposed by the Pakistani and Qatari mediators, as well as by the US and Iran”, Switzerland’s foreign ministry said.
Two months of final negotiations will begin immediately after the initial deal between the US and Iran is signed. Negotiations will continue for a 60-day window after the ceremony, officials told AFP, leading to a plan for the lifting of economic sanctions and decisions on the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump said that he would send the deal with Iran to the US Congress for a review. “I like the idea, send it to Congress please, ” he said at the start of a meeting with the UAE president Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the sidelines of the G7 summit. “I mean who wouldn’t approve it.”
Speaking at the G7, Trump has said the strait of Hormuz will be open by Friday and that the full text of the peace deal will be released in a “formal setting”. Trump also said he expects the “second stage” of the deal “to go quickly”.
An Iranian deputy foreign minister said the two-month US naval blockade on Iranian ports had been lifted ahead of the planned formal signing of a deal ending the war. “The lifting of the blockade was something we had emphasised from the outset. It has now begun, and the blockade has been lifted prior to the formal signing” scheduled for Friday, said Iranian deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi, according to the government’s website.
Qatar, a key mediator between the US and Iran, said it believed the framework peace agreement could deliver security to the Middle East. “We are cautiously optimistic that the signing of the memorandum of understanding will lead to the next phase of regional security through the talks that will take place on the nuclear programme and on other issues, ” foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari told reporters in Doha, as he praised Pakistan’s mediation efforts.
Iran’s military has threatened to respond to Israel after strikes in southern Lebanon killed four people, despite an agreement being reached between Tehran and Washington to end the Middle East war, including in Lebanon.
