Trump warns Israel and Iran not to ‘blow it’ after new strikes threaten emerging ceasefire deal

Trump has pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop hitting Lebanon hard while a deal is near, but the prime minister has defied him.

Trump told Fox News he had asked Netanyahu what he was doing, using an expletive.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged “maximum restraint at this crucial moment.”

Trump says ‘this important process’ shouldn’t be disrupted

Netanyahu’s office said the strikes were in response to Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel. Israel’s military said Hezbollah launched three projectiles. There was no immediate comment from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Israel’s military later said it was preparing for potential incoming fire in the coming hours.

Trump described the attack on northern Israel as “very small and meaningless, nobody was hurt, injured, or killed, and should not disrupt this important process.”

An Associated Press photographer at the scene in Beirut said a five-story apartment building with shops on the ground floor was struck. Residents of the southern suburbs, many of whom had returned home after weeks of relative calm, could be seen fleeing.

Israel’s military later reported a projectile coming from Lebanon.

Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel on March 2, two days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, sparking war in the Middle East. Israeli troops have since pushed their invasion of Lebanon deeper than at any point in over a quarter century.

Iran wants a ceasefire deal to include the fighting in Lebanon. It’s unclear whether that would mean Israeli forces’ withdrawal. Most of Hezbollah’s attacks in recent weeks have targeted Israeli troops inside Lebanon.

Mediators push a deal while Iran vows ‘strong response’

“A strong response is coming,” said Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security commission and is close to top leaders.

And Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a lead negotiator for Tehran, warned the U.S. after Israel’s strikes that “if you lack the will and ability to fulfill your commitments, speaking of continuing the path is not possible.”

Qatari mediators traveled to Tehran on Sunday to finalize the agreement, according to two regional officials who spoke before Israel’s strikes in Beirut.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, expressed cautious optimism that the U.S. and Iran were finally approaching a deal that could halt hostilities that have killed thousands of people and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure has thrown world markets into disarray.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Saturday the deal would be signed Sunday, while Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said it could happen in the coming days. Trump has said the strait would open immediately.

The deal is expected to be signed electronically, without an in-person ceremony.

Iran’s government warned that any division at home over the deal weakens its negotiating position.

In comments carried by state media, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged national unity and called it a “disgrace” when someone stands before parliament and calls anyone who negotiates a traitor.

Iranians must recognize that no war lasts forever, spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency.

Nuclear and other issues would be addressed later

The deal does not solve the thorniest issues between the U.S. and Iran, including Iran’s nuclear program or its billions of dollars in frozen funds, but offers a 60-day framework for technical discussions on those issues, according to Pakistani and regional officials familiar with the ongoing negotiations. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Under the deal being discussed, U.S. and Israel appear to have fallen short of their original goals of destroying Iran’s missile and nuclear programs and ending its support for armed proxies in the region.

Iran’s nuclear program and highly enriched uranium have long been at the center of tensions with the U.S. and Israel. Trump on social media asserted Saturday that “when all is calm,” the U.S. would go in and “downblend and destroy” the enriched uranium in Iran or in the U.S.

Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful and has not publicly committed to giving up the enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under three nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last year.

Critics in Trump’s Republican Party, struggling with an unpopular war ahead of the midterm elections, have criticized the emerging deal. Some said it did not improve on the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump withdrew the U.S. from during his first term and which he still describes as “bad.”

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Frankel reported from Jerusalem, Magdy from Cairo, Sewell from Beirut and Weissert from Washington. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed.

Julia Frankel, Abby Sewell, Samy Magdy And Will Weissert, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

Trump warns Israel and Iran not to ‘blow it’ after new strikes threaten emerging ceasefire deal

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