Lebanon has emerged as a flashpoint in President Trump’s effort to end the Iran war, with the U.S. and Israel publicly disagreeing with Iran and Pakistan over whether the country to Israel’s north is included in the two-week ceasefire announced earlier this week.
Opposing stances over the terms of the deal — and claims by Iran of U.S. and Israeli ceasefire violations — are straining the fragile truce as Israel continues launching strikes in Lebanon and Iran warns of “explicit costs and strong responses” to breaches of the deal.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister said sweeping attacks Israel carried out Wednesday in Lebanon were “a grave violation” of the ceasefire agreement, adding that the U.S. must choose “between war and ceasefire — you cannot have it both at the same time.”
“You cannot ask for a ceasefire and then accept terms and conditions, accept areas the ceasefire is applied to, and name Lebanon, exactly Lebanon in that, and then your ally just start a massacre,” Saeed Khatibzadeh told the BBC, CBS News’ partner network.
Khatibzadeh said the agreement between the U.S. and Iran stipulated a cessastion of hostilities by both countries and their allies, including in Lebanon.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Thursday on X that Lebanon and other allies of Iran “form an inseparable part of the ceasefire,” calling it “Point 1” of the 10-point Iranian proposal that underpins the agreement between Washington and Tehran, with “no room for denial and backtracking.”
Qalibaf noted that the leader of Pakistan, which brokered the ceasefire agreement, had also “stressed the Lebanon issue.” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Tuesday night on X, as he announced the deal, that Iran, the U.S and “their allies” had “agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.”
