Israel strikes Hezbollah in Beirut, Iran warns deal could unravel

Israel’s strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs raised the stakes far beyond a single battlefield hit, threatening fragile U.S.-Iran diplomacy even as Hezbollah weighed how hard to respond. Lebanese Civil Defense said at least three people were killed and at least six others were wounded in the attack on Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah-dominated district that has become one of the war’s most dangerous flashpoints.

Israel said it struck after Hezbollah launched three projectiles toward northern Israel, which Israeli officials described as a blatant ceasefire violation. The Israel Defense Forces said the target was a Hezbollah command center or headquarters and called the operation a precise strike. Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel would not tolerate fire into its territory, underscoring how quickly the border fighting had spilled back into Beirut after weeks of relative restraint against the capital.

The attack immediately reverberated in Tehran, where officials warned it could disrupt a broader agreement aimed at ending the wider war. Donald Trump had said a deal could be signed on Sunday, but Iranian officials said the timeline remained uncertain and insisted Lebanon had to be part of any settlement. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, said the strike showed the United States either lacked the will or the ability to fulfill its commitments. Sardar Asadi, a senior Iranian military official, said the attack would not go unanswered.

Israel also issued evacuation warnings for at least 29 towns and villages in southern Lebanon on the same day, signaling that the Beirut strike was part of a wider pressure campaign. Fighting has continued along the frontier with near-daily Israeli strikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon as Israel seeks to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure close to its borders.

The Beirut attack came just a week after another Israeli strike in Dahiyeh on June 7, when Lebanese media reported two people killed and at least 11 wounded. Israeli officials had largely avoided striking the capital during much of the conflict because of concerns in Washington that a hit on Beirut could complicate ceasefire efforts and nuclear negotiations with Iran. Sunday’s strike made that risk immediate, turning one attack in a Hezbollah stronghold into a potential test of whether diplomacy can survive the next round of escalation.