Israel and Palestine Fire Missiles As War Rages On - Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty
Iran’s military has announced that its first wave of attacks on Israel since a ceasefire in April is now over. But it threatened to resume the strikes if Israel continued attacks on Lebanon.
Israel’s Channel 12, citing a senior Israeli official, said Israel was halting strikes on Iran at Trump’s request. The official added that if Hezbollah attacks on Israeli towns continued, Israel would attack the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Israel launched attacks on Iran after Tehran fired missiles towards Israel late on Sunday. Iran had said its strikes were in retaliation for Israeli strikes on the outskirts of Beirut.
Earlier, Trump demanded that Israel and Iran “immediately stop ‘shooting'”. The flurry of attacks drove oil prices up around 4% and threatened to wreck efforts to broker a deal to end the war. An Israeli official said Trump had spoken on Monday to Netanyahu.
Netanyahu delivered a short televised statement on Monday. His office did not say if it was live or pre-recorded, saying Iran and Hezbollah were weaker than ever, but the war with them “has not yet ended”. In the event that Iran attacks Israel again, Israel will respond “with might”, he added.
Israel has carried out nearly 3,500 air strikes on Lebanon since the U.S. announced a ceasefire for the country on April 16, Lebanon’s defence minister, Michel Menassa, said.
During a cabinet meeting on Monday, Menassa said that from April 17 to June 7, Israel had carried out 3,491 air strikes, 407 controlled demolitions, and six “razing” operations, or demolitions, which have left some entire villages in the southernmost strip of Lebanon entirely flattened.
While it has largely halted air strikes on Beirut and its suburbs, the ceasefire has failed to halt fighting in southern Lebanon between Israel and Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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