Diplomats worked on Friday to try to keep the fragile deal between Iran and the United States on track, after Israeli strikes in Lebanon prompted Iran to pull out of peace talks. Hours later, Israel said it had agreed to a cease-fire in Lebanon with Iran’s ally, Hezbollah.
Iran’s withdrawal from talks with the United States, even if temporary, dealt a blow to the framework agreement signed this week by President Trump. Negotiations for a long-term peace agreement had been expected to start just hours later in Switzerland.
But if the already shaky truce with Iran wobbled, it apparently held, for now, with no suggestion that talks had been put off indefinitely. Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continued to increase, though it remained far below its prewar level.
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, confirmed that his country was “firmly committed to an immediate cease-fire.” Mr. Trump told NBC News in a phone call that he had asked Israeli leaders on Friday to agree to a cease-fire in Lebanon, which he called “a little icing on the cake,” but did not say if he had spoken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hezbollah has not publicly confirmed that it agreed to a cease-fire.
The day’s events demonstrated how delicate the U.S.-Iran agreement reached this week remains, and how central Lebanon is to it. The first of its 14 points commits both countries “and their allies in the current war” to “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” But neither Israel, which went to war against Iran along with the United States, nor Hezbollah, backed by Iran, has signed onto the agreement.
Lebanon was relatively quiet in the hours after the cease-fire there was to take effect, at 4 p.m. local time. It followed an intense round of Israeli bombing during the night that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed 47 people and wounded 97. Officials from multiple countries confirmed the cease-fire, which they said was brokered by Qatar and the United States. They, along with those who confirmed the Iranian withdrawal from talks, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
Iran insists that any short- or long-term peace agreement include Lebanon. But Israel’s government has said repeatedly that it will continue its offensive to rout Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, and Mr. Netanyahu is under immense domestic political pressure to do so.
Mr. Netanyahu ordered the latest bombing in Lebanon after a strike on an Israeli tank in Lebanon that killed four soldiers, and said, in a statement early on Friday, that Israel “will exact a very heavy price from Hezbollah for these attacks.”
Even after the cease-fire reportedly took hold, the belligerent language continued. Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, in an address on Friday vowed “the expulsion of the enemy from our land.” And Mr. Leiter said that Israeli forces would remain in southern Lebanon “to rid the area of Hezbollah.”
Mr. Netanyahu has angered his most important ally, Mr. Trump, who has publicly derided him, accused Israel of using excessive force in pursuing its war aims and suggested that it is undermining the deal with Iran.
The memorandum signed this week by Mr. Trump and Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, provides for a 60-day window to negotiate a long-term peace pact addressing matters like limiting Iran’s nuclear program and major financial incentives, including the lifting of Western sanctions to aid Iran’s battered economy. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, said that he assented to the deal but did not agree with it and placed the responsibility for it on Mr. Pezeshkian, warning against bowing to American demands.
Talks for that long-term agreement were expected to begin on Friday at a resort on Lake Lucerne, in Switzerland. But diplomats said the Iranians withdrew from the planned meeting, and Vice President JD Vance, who was scheduled to take part, abruptly canceled his trip late Thursday night in Washington, Friday morning in Europe. Neither side, nor the countries that have acted as intermediaries, have said when the negotiations might take place.
Dana Stroul, a former top Pentagon official for the Middle East in the Biden administration, said the delay suggests American misunderstanding of Iranian leaders, for whom salvaging their country’s economy is not the top priority.
Ms. Stroul, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that given the widening rift between Washington and Jerusalem, “Tehran smells blood in the water, and they’re trying to stir the pot and further drive a wedge because they anticipate that everyone will blame Israel.”
The fighting in Lebanon, intimately tied to conflict between Iran and Israel, has long been a string of retaliations, with Israel consistently using far greater force and Lebanon suffering far greater destruction and casualties. The latest chapter began after Israel and the United States started bombing Iran, Hezbollah’s sponsor, on Feb. 28. Hezbollah responded with rocket and drone fire into Israel, which retaliated with airstrikes and a ground invasion.
Abdi Latif Dahir and Euan Ward reported from Beirut, Lebanon, Adam Rasgon from Jerusalem and Johnatan Reiss from Tel Aviv. Reporting was contributed by Erica L. Green, Erika Solomon, Michael Crowley, Ronen Bergman, Jim Tankersley, Yeganeh Torbati, Pranav Baskar, Sanam Mahoozi, Jenny Gross, Ephrat Livni and Alan Yuhas.
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