Fighting flared anew in Lebanon on Friday, with authorities reporting 47 killed in Israeli airstrikes and Israel announcing the deaths of four of its soldiers [GETTY]
Lebanese state media reported an Israeli airstrike on the country’s south on Friday, soon after a US official said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed on a ceasefire on Friday.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said the strike targeted the area of Jezzine “a short while ago”, adding that one of its journalists reported drones flying over the Tyre area.
An AFP correspondent also reported hearing continuous artillery shelling in the city of Nabatieh.
The truce, which began at 4PM local time (1300 GMT), was brokered by US and Qatari mediators following talks with Israel and Iran, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
A Gulf diplomat also confirmed the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire to AFP.
Fighting flared anew in Lebanon on Friday, with authorities reporting 47 killed in Israeli airstrikes and Israel announcing the deaths of four of its soldiers.
The violence is the worst since the sealing of a US-Iran deal to halt the wider Middle East war, which was also supposed to pause fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
NNA reported a fresh Israeli strike on the area of Jezzine in the south, soon after a US official said on Friday that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed on a ceasefire.
An NNA journalist also reported drones flying over the Tyre area, while an AFP correspondent heard artillery shelling in the southern town of Nabatieh.
The Lebanon clashes had threatened the deal between Washington and Tehran to end the war, after the postponement of planned talks in Switzerland featuring US Vice President JD Vance.
US President Donald Trump and his administration have shown growing frustration recently with Israel, Washington’s ally and partner in the Iran war.
Trump called on Thursday for a “complete ceasefire on all fronts”, including from Israel.
He has also been increasingly critical of the high death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
“When two drones are shot into the desert and drop harmlessly, you don’t have to knock down buildings in Beirut. They could behave better, and frankly they could do a better job,” Trump said at the G7 summit in France on Wednesday.
Vance, meanwhile, issued an extraordinary rebuke of hardline ministers in the Israeli government on Thursday for criticising the Iran deal, telling them to “wake up and smell the reality.”
“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance told a White House briefing.
“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
Trump on Friday separately showed frustration with both Iran and critics at home who say the deal rewards Tehran without properly limiting its nuclear program.
“We didn’t meet out of desperation, Iran did,” Trump said on Truth Social, after Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday that Trump had “used all kinds of levers” to secure the deal “out of desperation”.
Trump added that the United States would “play out the 60 days” during which Iran and the United States are meant to try to thrash out a long-term deal. “They get no money, not ten cents!”
Republican hawks and Democrats alike have criticised the deal for offering sanctions relief and a $300 reconstruction fund for Iran, but Trump said Iran was now “diminished”.
“How stupid can some people be???” he said in another social media post.
