Lebanon said late Monday that Hezbollah had accepted a US proposal for a mutual cessation of attacks with Israel, setting out a deal that would stop Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in exchange for Hezbollah halting attacks on Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the arrangement and said the IDF would keep operating in southern Lebanon as planned, even as he warned strikes on Beirut would continue if Hezbollah did not stop attacking Israeli cities and civilians.
The timing matters because the statement landed while the fighting was still active and after a day of threats, counterthreats and airstrikes that had pushed the conflict closer to a broader regional spillover. In Washington, Donald Trump said he had spoken to both Netanyahu and Hezbollah representatives and declared that “all shooting will stop,” while the Lebanese embassy in the US said the ceasefire was also meant to extend across all Lebanese territory.
The embassy said it had received confirmation of Hezbollah’s acceptance of the US proposal for a mutual cessation of attacks. It said the arrangement would halt Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in exchange for Hezbollah refraining from attacks against Israel, and that the ceasefire would be extended to encompass all Lebanese territory. Netanyahu separately said the IDF would continue to operate in southern Lebanon as planned, a signal that Israel was not treating the reported understanding as a full stop to its military campaign.
That split immediately showed up on the ground. After Trump said both sides had agreed to stop fighting, Hezbollah said it had launched three attacks at Israeli tanks and soldiers near two villages in northern Israel, using drones and a barrage of artillery shells. The Israeli military said it intercepted two projectiles fired from Lebanon, and no injuries were reported. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported Israeli strikes on several southern areas and said a very violent detonation rocked the town of Debbine.
Earlier, the Israeli leader had ordered strikes on terror targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs in response to rocket and drone attacks by Hezbollah, a reminder that the reported deal was being announced on top of active military operations rather than after a quieting of the front. The United States has tried to separate the Lebanon fighting from negotiations with Iran, but those lines are not clean: Iran has long backed Hezbollah with ideological, military and financial support, and Tehran has warned that Israeli military actions in Lebanon threaten the current US-Iran ceasefire.
Abbas Araghchi called the truce “unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” and said any violation on one front would be a violation on all fronts. Iranian media outlet Tasnim reported that Tehran could suspend indirect negotiations with the US over Israeli military actions in Lebanon and that Iran and its allies could activate other fronts, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Trump later posted that talks with Iran were continuing at a rapid pace, but the contradiction on the battlefield remained: a ceasefire was announced, yet shells and projectiles were still being fired after the announcement was made.
