Iran and Israel Pause Direct Strikes, but Israel Keeps Hitting Lebanon

Iran and Israel announced a pause in their attacks on each other after a rapid escalation over Sunday and Monday that involved intense direct strikes between the two. An understanding reached in April had previously reduced such attacks. The pause followed an appeal from US President Donald Trump for both sides to stop firing, The New York Times reported.

The halt is conditional and already strained. Israel says it has stopped striking Iran but will continue operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, while Iran has warned it will resume its own strikes if those Lebanese operations continue. On Monday, Israeli forces struck Tyre, the fifth-largest city in Lebanon. The Russian outlet Kommersant, citing an Al Jazeera correspondent, reported that eight people were killed, and other accounts put the number at five dead with several wounded, including members of the Lebanese Red Cross.

The account of events differs sharply by source. The Israeli business daily Globes reported that the military issued an evacuation warning for Tyre and quoted Trump predicting that within two weeks he would declare a complete victory and that Iran was prepared to give up nuclear weapons. Iranian state media instead presented the weekend's missile response as a successful operation that drew wide international attention. Both accounts agree that the underlying confrontation has not ended.

The pause therefore rests on an unresolved contradiction. Israel treats Lebanon as a separate front where it intends to keep operating, and Iran treats attacks on Hezbollah as attacks on its own position. Until that difference is resolved, the halt in direct strikes remains reversible.