Israeli strikes killed at least five people in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, undermining a fragile de-escalation deal announced by U.S. President Donald Trump just hours earlier. The Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) reported that two Syrian nationals were killed in an Israeli attack on a plant nursery in the town of Jebchit, located in the Nabatieh governorate.
Additional Israeli drone strikes claimed three more lives in the region. According to the NNA, a strike on a motorcycle on Martyr Sabra Street in Toul and a car in the Dhi’at al-Arab neighborhood of Ansar killed two people, while a separate drone attack killed the driver of a car in Nabatieh.
The violence persisted despite Trump’s announcement on Monday via Truth Social that he had secured a commitment to halt hostilities. Trump stated he facilitated the deal through phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, through “highly placed representatives,” with Hezbollah. “I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop – that Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel,” Trump wrote.
The reported agreement has not been publicly confirmed by either Hezbollah or the Israeli government. According to statements from Lebanon’s embassy in Washington, the proposal would see Hezbollah stop attacks on Israel in exchange for Israel halting strikes on Beirut and its southern suburbs.
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed he discussed the matter with Trump, he maintained that Israel would push ahead with plans to strike Beirut if Hezbollah initiates further attacks. The office of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun stated that under the agreement, Hezbollah would cease firing into Israel while the Israeli military would stop striking the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Evidence of the deal's instability was immediate. The Israeli military confirmed that its air defenses intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel on Tuesday morning, hours after the announcement.
These developments follow a period of intense escalation that saw Israeli troops stage their deepest incursion into Lebanon in more than two decades. The military campaign has included waves of heavy bombardments and threats to strike the Beirut suburbs, complicating broader U.S. efforts to secure a ceasefire in the wider war on Iran.
Iran has previously stated that one of its conditions for ending the war with the U.S. is an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon, began firing on northern Israel following the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran at the end of February. Until that time, the group had not attacked Israel since a November 2024 ceasefire, despite near-daily breaches of that agreement by Israel.
