A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Israel has not bombed Beirut today.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The fact that Israel did not attack Lebanon's capital is news because Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had said strikes were coming and would target Hezbollah offices there. Israel's war with Lebanon has complicated President Trump's negotiations with Iran, which said on Monday that it was suspending those talks. Coming up, we'll discuss these developments with Democratic Representative Jim Himes. We begin with the facts on the ground.
MARTÍNEZ: Here to discuss the latest is NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai. So walk us through what happened.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: All right. So it was midday yesterday in Israel when Netanyahu published a video in Hebrew, saying there would be no situation in which Hezbollah attacks Israeli cities while its offices in south Beirut remain off-limits. And then he said he instructed the military to bomb targets in the capital. And it's part of a broader offensive by Israel in Lebanon that's been rapidly expanding.
MARTÍNEZ: And watching all of this closely is Iran.
BATRAWY: Exactly. Hezbollah, an Iran proxy, got into this war when it fired rockets back at Israel following months of ceasefire on its end after Israeli airstrikes killed Iran's supreme leader in February. And since then, A, Israel's invaded southern Lebanon, as you know, razing villages, displacing over a million Lebanese and killing hundreds of women and children and more than a hundred paramedics, according to Lebanese authorities. And then, over the weekend, Israel took control of a symbolic and strategic medieval castle in southern Lebanon in its deepest incursion into that country in nearly three decades.
So yesterday, Iran said enough is enough, and a semi-official news outlet close to Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it was suspending talks via mediators with the U.S. over all of this. And it was only hours earlier, I'll remind you, that Trump had said Iran really wants a deal with the U.S. and told his critics in a post online to, quote, "just sit back and relax." But after Iran's threats, Trump called Netanyahu and said he asked him not to raid Beirut and to turn his troops around. He says he also spoke with representatives of Hezbollah and got them to agree to stop shooting at Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon. And he said, quote, let's see how long this lasts - hopefully for eternity.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, Trump and Netanyahu launched into this war on Iran together. How aligned are they now on how to get out of it?
BATRAWY: I mean, it's increasingly clear they're not and that they're actually at odds, and this is playing out in Lebanon. We know the two men had contentious calls about Iran, with Trump pushing for a diplomatic solution to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran now controls, and Netanyahu pushing back. And keep in mind both these men are facing elections this year. The Iran war is not popular in the U.S., but it does have broad support in Israel. And expanding the war in Lebanon derails those peace efforts with Iran.
And Netanyahu put out a terse statement yesterday after his call with Trump that sounded like he was the one calling the shots. He said he told Trump Israel would bomb Beirut if Hezbollah doesn't hold its fire, that Israel's position remains unchanged and that the military will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon. Now, for its part, Hezbollah says it wants a complete end to the war, a full Israeli withdrawal, but it does seem the group has accepted for now this partial ceasefire, according to Lebanon's embassy in Washington.
MARTÍNEZ: But - OK. So if, as Netanyahu says, Israel continues to operate as planned in southern Lebanon, where does that leave talks between the U.S. and Iran?
BATRAWY: Well, mediators like Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey - you know, they were all pushing yesterday to salvage these talks. There was a flurry of calls between them and Iran yesterday. But Trump told CNBC in a phone interview yesterday that talks with Iran were taking too long. He signaled he was losing interest. When asked if he thought the talks were collapsing, he said he didn't care and thought, quote, "they started to get very boring." He said the only thing he cares about is Iran not getting nuclear weapons. But right after that interview, he posted online, quote, "talks are continuing at a rapid pace" with Iran.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Aya Batrawy in Dubai. Thank you very much.
BATRAWY: Thanks, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
