Israel strikes Beirut despite truce, Iranian lawmaker threatens to retaliate

BEIRUT/DUBAI/NEW BRUNSWICK, (New Jersey): Israel struck the outskirts of Beirut on Sunday for the first time since the US announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week, and an Iranian lawmaker threatened to retaliate, putting talks to end the wider war into new jeopardy.

Iran has long said any peace deal with the United States would depend on a ceasefire also holding in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters who fired across the border in solidarity with Tehran.

There was no immediate formal response from Tehran to Sunday’s Israeli strikes on the southern outskirts of Beirut, but influential hardline Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei posted on X that Iran would deliver a “decisive and painful response”.

“Look at the sky of the occupied territories tonight,” wrote Rezaei, who serves as the spokesperson for parliament’s national security committee.

Washington and Tehran have shown little progress in reaching a deal to end the war that President Donald Trump launched in February with a campaign of air strikes alongside Israel against Iran. Trump has repeatedly threatened to restart the strikes unless there is an agreement soon.

“We’re very close to a deal, or I’m going to blow the hell out of them,” Trump told NBC News in an interview, broadcast to mark 100 days of the conflict. The comments were recorded on Friday and broadcast on Sunday as Trump visited his New Jersey golf course.

Trump has leaned on Israel to scale back its campaign in Lebanon to allow room for a peace deal with Iran, including rebuking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with obscenities in a phone call last week.