Israel’s military said it launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut on Sunday despite ongoing efforts to negotiate an end to the US-Iran war. Smoke could be seen rising over the Lebanese capital.
The strikes have threatened to derail negotiations on the deal, which is currently a major embarrassment for the Israeli government. The last time Israel attacked areas of Beirut last week, it started the worst fighting between Iran and Israel since the April 7 ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strikes were in response to Hezbollah attacks in the north of the country. The Israeli military said earlier in the day that Hezbollah had launched three explosives in northern Israel, releasing images in which an audible boom was followed by a column of smoke rising above the tree line.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene in Beirut said the building that was hit was a five-story building with shops on the ground floor. The two lower floors were the most damaged by the strikes. There was no word about the dead. Residents of the southern countryside, most of whom have returned to their homes after a while in the past few weeks, were seen fleeing the area.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on March 2, two days after the US and Israel attacked Iran, sparking a war in the Middle East. The Israeli military has pushed its invasion of Lebanon deeper than at any time in more than a century.
The strike comes as mediators move Iran and the US closer to a deal
Iran is seeking a ceasefire to include the war in Lebanon and is demanding the release of billions of dollars in frozen funds. But as the talks continue, Israel has been sidelined in talks led by Pakistan and others.
“Israel will not tolerate firing on its territory,” Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Sunday. Trump pressed Netanyahu to stop hitting Lebanon hard while a deal was imminent, but the prime minister refused.
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The Speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, warned X that Israel’s strikes in areas of Beirut show that “America does not have the will to fulfill its obligations or the ability to do so.” He warned that strikes could jeopardize the final phase of negotiations.
There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
Qatari negotiators went to Tehran on Sunday to finalize the deal, according to two regional officials.
These officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, expressed great hope that the US and Iran are finally approaching an agreement that can stop the conflicts that have killed thousands of people and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the closure of which has upset world markets.
US President Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday that the agreement would be signed on Sunday, while the spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmail Baghaei, said it could happen in the coming days. Trump said the Strait of Hormuz would open immediately after signing.
The agreement is expected to be signed electronically, without an in-person ceremony, although it is not clear when or how the signing will take place.
The nuclear and other issues are yet to be finalized
The accord does not address the most pressing issues between the US and Iran, including Iran’s nuclear program or its frozen assets, but it provides a 60-day framework for technical talks on those issues, according to Pakistani and regional officials familiar with the ongoing talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The officials described Pakistan’s months-long effort leading up to the talks, fighting to keep both sides out of the room and the complete collapse of negotiations on several occasions.
Under the current deal being negotiated, the US and Israel appear to have failed in their original goals of destroying Iran’s missile and nuclear programs and ending its support for proxies. It is not clear how the agreement will address these issues, or whether they will be part of the final agreement.
Critics in Trump’s own Republican Party, which is fighting an unpopular battle ahead of the midterm elections, slammed the deal. Others say it did not advance the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump withdrew the US from during his first term and still describes as “bad.”
Meanwhile, Trump was expected to discuss the dissolution of the Strait of Hormuz during the Group of Seven meeting that begins on Monday. The waterway is vital for vital shipments of oil, natural gas and related products such as fertilizer, and its successful closure shook the world economy.
Iran’s nuclear program and highly enriched uranium have long been a source of tension with the US and Israel and a source of international concern.
Trump on social media asserted that “when everything calms down,” the US will step in and “demolish and destroy” the enriched uranium in Iran or the US.
Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of enriched uranium reaching 60% purity, a short, technical step from 90% weapons-grade levels, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran has long kept its nuclear program quiet and has not publicly committed to giving up enriched uranium, believed to be buried beneath three nuclear sites badly damaged by US strikes last year.
–Frankel from Jerusalem, Ahmed from Islamabad, Magdy from Cairo and Sewell from Beirut. Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
