Lebanon has emerged as a flashpoint in President Trump's effort to end the Iran war, with the U.S. and Israel publicly disagreeing with Iran and Pakistan over whether the country to Israel's north is included in the two-week ceasefire announced earlier this week.

Opposing stances over the terms of the deal — and claims by Iran of U.S. and Israeli ceasefire violations — are straining the fragile truce as Israel continues launching strikes in Lebanon and Iran warns of "explicit costs and strong responses" to breaches of the deal.

Iran's deputy foreign minister said sweeping attacks Israel carried out Wednesday in Lebanon were "a grave violation" of the ceasefire agreement, adding that the U.S. must choose "between war and ceasefire — you cannot have it both at the same time."

"You cannot ask for a ceasefire and then accept terms and conditions, accept areas the ceasefire is applied to, and name Lebanon, exactly Lebanon in that, and then your ally just start a massacre," Saeed Khatibzadeh told the BBC, CBS News' partner network.

Khatibzadeh said the agreement between the U.S. and Iran stipulated a cessastion of hostilities by both countries and their allies, including in Lebanon.

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Thursday on X that Lebanon and other allies of Iran "form an inseparable part of the ceasefire," calling it "Point 1" of the 10-point Iranian proposal that underpins the agreement between Washington and Tehran, with "no room for denial and backtracking."

Qalibaf noted that the leader of Pakistan, which brokered the ceasefire agreement, had also "stressed the Lebanon issue." Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Tuesday night on X, as he announced the deal, that Iran, the U.S and "their allies" had "agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY."

What the U.S. and Israel say
The White House and Israel's government says Lebanon was never part of the ceasefire agreement.

President Trump told PBS News Hour's correspondent Elizabeth Landers on Wednesday that Israel continuing its attacks in Lebanon was "part of the deal — everyone knows that. That's a separate skirmish."

Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. never promised Lebanon would be included in the ceasefire agreement, despite Iran's claims it was. He chalked it up to a "reasonable misunderstanding" between the parties.

Israel also has said the ceasefire agreement does not extend to its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel's military said it hit 100 purported Hezbollah targets across the country on Wednesday in just 10 minutes. Lebanon's health ministry says at least 203 people were killed, and its prime minister said there were significant civilian casualties. Israel's defense minister said Thursday that "200 terrorists" were killed in the strikes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Thursday that Israel would begin its own negotiations with Lebanon.

"In light of Lebanon's repeated calls to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the Cabinet yesterday to open direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible," Netanyahu said. "The negotiations will focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon."

On Wednesday, Netanyahu said Iran had entered ceasefire negotiations with the U.S. "battered and weaker than ever," and that it had waived all of its preconditions, including a ceasefire in Lebanon.

"I insisted that the temporary ceasefire with Iran not include Hezbollah," Netanyahu said. "And we continue to strike them forcefully."

When asked Thursday by the BBC if Iran would tell Hezbollah to stop firing rockets into Israel, Khatibzadeh said "it is quite clear that Hezbollah is [a] pure Lebanese freedom movement."

He did not deny that Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers help train and arm Hezbollah fighters, but said "it is not true that they are acting on behalf of us."

He also said that, despite Israel's attacks in Lebanon, Iran remained "very much focused on getting [an agreement] done."

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict
Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been exchanging strikes since shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack that sparked the war in Gaza. Like its much smaller Iran-backed ally Hamas, Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States government, and Israel's, for almost two decades. The European Union also considers Hezbollah's armed wing a terrorist group.

Hezbollah was formed in 1982 as a Shiite Muslim political and military force with the support of Iran and Syria, after an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. It has functioned since then within the Lebanese government as a political party, but also outside of it, providing services to its Shiite followers and maintaining its own paramilitary force.

After Israel launched its war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 attack, Hezbollah started launching regular rocket strikes on northern Israel in support, it said, of Hamas and the Palestinian people.

Since then, Israel has retaliated with extensive strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and Beirut's suburbs. Lebanese officials say at least 1 million people have been displaced by the Israeli assault. In 2024, Israel killed Hezbollah's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah with a strike in Beirut.

For significant periods after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli residents in northern Israelis communities, near the Lebanese border, were also forced to flee their homes for safety due to the Hezbollah rocket attacks. Netanyahu and members of his cabinet have said repeatedly that Israel will continue its operations in Lebanon until it is safe for all Israeli residents to return to their homes.

"Wonderful residents of the North, we are committed to returning security to you," Netanyahu said Wednesday.

The Strait of Hormuz
Control over shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains another key issue complicating the U.S.-Iran ceasefire. Iran has not loosened its grip on the vital waterway, through which about 20% of the world's oil supply was being transported on tankers before the Iran war began.

"Definitely, we are going to provide security for safe passage and it is going to happen after the United States actually withdraws this aggression," Iran's Khatibzadeh told the BBC Thursday, speaking of the strait.

He said Iran would determine a "protocol which is going to run from now on on safe passage in the Strait of Hormuz," inconjunction with Oman "and, of course, with [the] international community."

The strait is a geographical bottleneck for maritime traffic through which all goods from the Persian Gulf must pass to enter the Arabian Sea and the lucrative markets of Asia beyond. It is bordered by Iran to the north and Oman to the south.

"I think that we have shown to everybody that energy security is important for Iran, it's important for this body of water in the Persian Gulf, and we are going to abide by the international norms and international law … If safe passage mean[s] that a new protocol that ensure[s] forever that this body of water will be peaceful, then that's okay," but that safety should be two-sided, Khatibzadeh said.

The diplomat said Iran had "many doubts" about the prospects for a final peace agreement with the U.S., suggesting Tehran believed Washington could just be exhausting diplomatic channels but planning to revert to military force, or "dictating and not compromising."

President Trump has said he expects Iran to comply with the terms he says were agreed on for a ceasefire ahead of planned negotiations this weekend, warning that if it doesn't, he will order large-scale attacks on the country.

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