Lebanon has emerged as a central test for a new memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States, after continued Israeli attacks threatened to derail negotiations aimed at ending the wider confrontation between Tehran, Washington and their allies, according to Al Jazeera.
The MoU signed on Wednesday calls for “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon”. But Israeli strikes have continued since the signing, pushing the death toll from Israel’s air and ground offensive launched on March 2 to more than 4,000 and prompting Iran to postpone talks with the United States that had been planned for Friday in Switzerland.
Why is Lebanon so important?
The interim agreement states that any final deal will confirm the “permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon”.
For Iran, analysts say, Lebanon is not a side issue. Hezbollah is Tehran’s most important regional ally, while Lebanon’s territorial integrity has become a key measure of whether the MoU can be implemented.
“Lebanon is at the beginning of the agreement because the Iranians want to bring home that Lebanon’s territorial integrity is essential to the agreement, the success of the [MoU],” said Michael Young, a Lebanon expert at the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have both demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory. But they differ on the route: Hezbollah wants the issue linked to Iran’s negotiations with the United States, while Beirut prefers direct talks with Israel.
Could Israel undermine the deal?
Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since October 2023. Israel intensified the conflict twice, first in September 2024 and again in March this year, bombing Lebanon and invading its territory.
The March escalation followed Hezbollah’s first fire on Israel in more than a year after the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It also came in response to more than 10,000 Israeli ceasefire violations since late 2024.
Since then, Israel has killed at least 4,057 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 12,121. It has also targeted paramedics and journalists and razed dozens of villages.
Washington has tried several times to declare ceasefires in Lebanon, but the situation on the ground has continued to deteriorate.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday at a G7 summit in France that Israel should scale back.
“Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,” Trump said. “And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah.”
Trump added he was “not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah. They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever.”
Analysts say the inclusion of Lebanon in the MoU suggests Iran feels strongly about the conflict and that Washington, which has positive relations with the Lebanese government, may be willing to press Israel.
“The US wants to split out the Lebanon and Iran conflicts,” said David Wood, senior analyst on Lebanon at the International Crisis Group. “It can help Lebanon by insisting that Israel implement the June 3 proposal for a bilateral ceasefire.”
But Young said Israel “is going to try to torpedo” the MoU by continuing the war in Lebanon.
Karim Safieddine, a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said Israel had “no political, technological, industrial, economic incentive” to stop the war.
