Middle East crisis live: Israel-Lebanon talks begin in Washington as conflict continues
Israel-Lebanon talks begin in Washington – report
The fourth round of negotiations between Israeli and Lebanese officials have begun in Washington, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA).
NNA has just reported the talks “began a short while ago” at the US state department headquarters.
We will bring you more as we get it.
Key events
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has tapped a close ally to serve as the country’s top intelligence official, days after Tulsi Gabbard announced her exit from the role.
The US president said that Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), and heir to a home construction company fortune, will serve as acting director of national intelligence.
Pulte has used his role at the FHFA to publicly level of a string of extraordinary allegations at Trump’s political opponents and enemies.
“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America,” Trump said on his Truth Social Platform.
Pulte will remain director of the FHFA, Trump said.
Gabbard, herself a controversial pick for the job, resigned last month, ending a tenure that saw her appear to be at odds with Trump over Iran war.
We have an early image of the ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon ahead of a new round of direct talks in Washington:
Israel-Lebanon talks begin in Washington – report
The fourth round of negotiations between Israeli and Lebanese officials have begun in Washington, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA).
NNA has just reported the talks “began a short while ago” at the US state department headquarters.
We will bring you more as we get it.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Tuesday that Israeli strikes a day earlier near a hospital in the southern city of Tyre killed four people and wounded 127 others, including 39 staff from the facility.
The ministry statement said the wounded staff at the Jabal Amel hospital were “four doctors, 27 nurses, and eight [administrative] employees – four of whom are in critical condition and receiving treatment in intensive care”.
The attack “also caused severe and extensive damage across the hospital’s various floors, departments and parking lot,” it added.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday called on Israel to exercise restraint in its campaign in southern Lebanon, where a three-month war with Hezbollah has killed more than 3,400 and uprooted over 1.2m people.
Merz said Germany viewed the latest escalation in the south with great concern and urged Hezbollah to lay down its arms.
Israel’s weapons exports has reached an all-time high for a fifth year running, according to the country’s defence ministry.
In a statement, it said: “Israel’s all-time defence export record has been broken for the fifth consecutive year, with $19.2bn in 2025 – a nearly 30% surge compared to the previous year, more than doubling in five years and quadrupling in a decade.”
Israeli defence minister says US backs striking Beirut suburbs if Hezbollah attacks northern Israel
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the US has backed plans to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs if Hezbollah attacks northern Israel.
The remarks came after Israel appeared to pull back from immediate threats of attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, following an intervention by US president Donald Trump.
In a speech during a defence export conference, as reported by Israel’s i24 news, Katz said:
Prime minister Netanyahu and I, together with the IDF, led a move aimed at establishing a new equation: Beirut’s Dahiyeh district will be treated the same as Israel’s northern communities. If Israeli towns continue to come under attack, we will evacuate and strike Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, Hezbollah’s main stronghold.
He added:
The United States endorsed this principle and conveyed it to the Lebanese government and all relevant parties. The test of this policy will become clear in the coming days: either the attacks on Israeli communities stop, or if they continue and we strike Dahiyeh, the equation will have been enforced.
Katz also acknowledged that the IDF has issued warnings for people to flee their homes, saying it has led to “the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents – 600,000 out of 950,000 by last night”.
Here are the latest images from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, where the Jabal Amel hospital sustained severe damage from yesterday’s bombing on nearby buildings.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has once again issued a warning telling people in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh to flee their homes and move north ahead of strikes.
It is the third such warning in a week for one of southern Lebanon’s largest cities, home to tens of thousands of people, which has seen continued Israeli strikes in recent weeks despite a ceasefire.
Patrick Wintour
The UK government has let the Palestinian people down and failed to make it economically impossible for Israel to continue to act with impunity in the West Bank and Gaza, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, has said.
She accused her own government of lacking ambition and wringing its hands on the Palestinian crisis, and she also chastised Donald Trump for declaring a ceasefire in Gaza and then walking away, leaving Gazans to live in rubble.
Thornberry has never been this critical of the government’s Middle East policy before and her remarks may find resonance in a potential Labour leadership contest that has so far included little mention of foreign policy.
She said the significant decision taken more than eight months ago to recognise Palestine as a state should have been only the first step of many but nothing further had been done since to help bring about a two-state solution.
Read more:
Netanyahu: ‘Iran has paid a very heavy price and is destined to fall’
In a message to David Barnea, the outgoing director of the Mossad (Israel’s national intelligence agency), Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran has paid a “very heavy” price and is “destined to fall”.
He wrote on X:
Yesterday we bid farewell to the outgoing head of the Mossad, Dedi Barnea.
The price Iran has already paid is a very heavy one. The foundations of this regime of terror in Iran have been shaken. It will never be what it once was, and I tell you – it is destined to fall.
On my own behalf, and on behalf of the entire nation, I have come to say to Dedi – thank you. Thank you for 30 years of dedicated service to the Mossad, and a special thank you for the last few years, which have yielded outstanding successes and achievements for the benefit of Israel’s security.
The Lebanese armed forces said two soldiers were injured “as a result of being targeted by a hostile Israeli drone” on a road between the towns of Habbouch and Deir ez-Zahrani in southern Lebanon.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
At least 8 people killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon – reports
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) has reported at least eight deaths this morning from Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon.
That is despite Donald Trump announcing an agreement to halt attacks that neither Israel or Hezbollah have publicly accepted.
Israeli attacks were reported in the southern Lebanese towns of Jibchit, Toul and Kfar Sir just north of the Litani River, according to NNA. Other areas in the Nabatieh region were also targeted, NNA reported.
An Israeli airstrike on Tyre yesterday killed at least four people and severely damaged the city’s Jabal Amel hospital, according to NNA.
The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has condemned Israel’s occupation of parts of Lebanon after Israeli troops seized the Beaufort, a Crusades-era castle south of the country.
“Nothing can justify the continuation of military operations and Israel’s prolonged occupation deep inside Lebanese territory,” he told France TV.
“That is why we have, of course, called for a ceasefire: that Hezbollah cease attacking Israel, that Israel cease attacking Lebanon, and that this dialogue, which has begun for the first time in so long between the Israeli and Lebanese governments, can continue.”
A fourth round of US-hosted direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon is scheduled to begin today.
Summary: Conflict in Lebanon continues despite Trump hailing Israeli-Hezbollah de-escalation
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Donald Trump has hailed an agreement to de-escalate the fighting in Lebanon, which has killed thousands of people and inflamed tensions in the broader US-Israeli war with Iran.
Trump said Hezbollah, through intermediaries, had pledged not to attack Israel, while Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to pull back any troops preparing to attack Beirut.
“Let’s see how long that lasts – Hopefully it will be for ETERNITY!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
According to Lebanon’s embassy in Washington, the agreement would not end the conflict in that country. But it calls for Israel to refrain from strikes on Beirut and its suburbs controlled by Hezbollah, while the Iran-aligned group would halt its attacks on Israel.
Despite the agreement, hostilities in southern Lebanon – which Israel invaded in March – appeared to continue. This morning, the Israeli military said that it intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel, and that no injuries were reported.
After Trump’s announcement, Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations in southern Lebanon, where ground forces are pushing toward the Zahrani River, their deepest incursion in Lebanon in 25 years. His statement made no mention of a new ceasefire.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said the group would support a full ceasefire across all Lebanon as a precursor to the withdrawal of Israeli troops. He did not say whether the group would stop its strikes on Israeli territory.
Lebanon said it would seek to expand the ceasefire in talks with Israel in Washington tomorrow. That could clear the path for renewed efforts to end the three-month-old war that began with US and Israeli attacks on Iran. The process has been stuck in limbo for weeks under a fragile ceasefire as negotiators have been unable to agree on an initial framework for peace talks.
In other developments:
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) threatened to open “new fronts” and keep the strait of Hormuz closed over Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, state media reported. “Iran considers crossing the red lines in Lebanon and Gaza to mean direct war,” state TV quoted the IRGC’ intelligence organisation as saying.
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The ceasefire already in place between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon, Iran’s top diplomat said yesterday after Netanyahu ordered attacks on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut. “Violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation,” foreign minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.
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US secretary of state Marco Rubio will face questions at Congress today for the first time since the Iran war began. He will testify before House and Senate committees on the state department’s 2027 budget request, where he is expected to face questions about Trump’s war efforts and shifting diplomatic goals.
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Oil prices jumped and equities slid as Middle East peace talks stumbled and tensions mounted between Iran and the US. Crude futures shot more than 5% higher yesterday as an Iranian news agency announced Tehran had suspended the negotiations with the US via mediators, AFP reported.
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US forces intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces based in Kuwait late on Sunday, the US military said yesterday. No American personnel were harmed, it added.
