Israeli Airstrikes on Two Towns in Lebanon Despite Trump’s Request to Netanyahu

The precarious ceasefire between Iran and the United States was put in jeopardy as Israeli aircraft launched airstrikes across at least two villages in Lebanon. After US President Donald Trump ordered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "scale back" attacks on Lebanon, there was a brief lull before the latest attacks.

In reaction to what it claims is Israel's "violation" of the US-Iran ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, said it also attacked a village in northern Israel. The political and militant group claimed to have fired rockets on Friday at Misgav Am in northern Israel's Upper Galillee district and Kiryat Shmona, which lies close to the Israel-Lebanon border. "This response will continue until the Israeli-American aggression against our country and our people ceases," it said in the statement.

As military activity and regional tensions continue to rise, the precarious ceasefire between Iran and the United States is coming under increasing pressure. Since Israel's founding in 1948, there has been a formal conflict between Israel and Lebanon. However, hours after a truce in the US-Israeli war on Iran was declared, Israel unexpectedly attacked crowded commercial and residential districts in central Beirut on Wednesday, killing at least 300 people and injuring over 1,000 more.

Israel said that the ceasefire that President Donald Trump announced late on Tuesday does not apply to its actions in Lebanon, where it invaded last month in an effort to destroy Hezbollah concurrently with the war on Iran. Lebanon will be included in the truce, according to Pakistan, which assisted in mediating the US-Iran negotiations.

Tehran also demanded that combat in Lebanon stop as part of its two-week truce agreement with the United States. Talks will "remain suspended" if the conflict in Lebanon did not finish quickly, according to Iran's semiofficial Tasnim news agency, which is allied to Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Nevertheless, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Vice President JD Vance are scheduled to lead the US delegation on Saturday.

The new bombings occurred just hours after US President Trump told NBC News that Netanyahu had promised to make Israel's airstrikes more "low-key" and that Israel was "scaling back" its attacks in Lebanon.Amid growing international fear that Israel's bombing campaign could end the already precarious two-week US-Iran ceasefire, Israel and Lebanon have also agreed to have talks in Washington next week, according to a State Department official.

However, a representative of the Lebanese administration told the news agency AFP that Beirut needed a ceasefire before engaging in any talks with Israel. The US meetings scheduled for next week have not yet been publicly announced by either Israel or Lebanon.