Trump urges Netanyahu to scale back Lebanon strikes — as Israel set to negotiate with Beirut

Ronny Reyes /NEW  YORK POST

 

President Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back the strikes in Lebanon that are threatening to undo the fragile cease-fire with Iran — with the Jewish state agreeing to negotiate with Beirut next week.

The president called his Israeli counterpart on Wednesday and called on him to be a helpful partner ahead of the high-stakes US-Iran talks slated to begin Saturday in Pakistan.

“I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump told NBC of his phone call with Netanyahu.

Vice President JD Vance struck a similar tone on Wednesday, telling reporters in Hungary that Israel had agreed to rein in its attacks following one of the most intense bombings of the war on Wednesday that left more than 250 people dead in Lebanon in just 10 minutes. 

 

The US and Israel have both insisted that Israel’s fight against Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group based in Lebanon, is not covered in the two-week cease-fire, but following Trump’s request, Netanyahu said Israel would open the channels for cease-fire talks.

‘Forgetting the people’: Iranians fear regime will become more brutal after ceasefire

Ending the war prematurely “could embolden the Iranian authorities, making them more repressive and self-assured,” warned Kako Aliyar, a member of a Kurdish Iranian opposition party.

Danielle Greayman-Kennard / THE JERUSALEM POST 

Iranians fear that the two-week ceasefire could stall momentum to topple the Islamic regime, potentially emboldening authorities and worsening repression, diaspora-based Iranians told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Kako Aliyar, a member of the leadership committee of the Kurdish Iranian opposition party Komala, who fled Iran at age 16 and joined the Kurdish opposition at 18, said that while war “is never desirable,” there was “no viable alternative” to removing the Islamic regime.

The war “inevitably carries risks for civilians,” but so too does the regime’s “killing, torturing, and persecution” of its own population, he continued.

“As Kurdish people, we have opposed the Islamic regime in Iran for nearly five decades, often in isolation and without external support,” he explained.

“For this reason, any weakening of the regime is generally perceived positively among us. Although we have had no direct involvement in the current war, there is a widespread sentiment among Kurds and Kurdish political parties that, after almost half a century, the time may have come for us to live freely and secure our legitimate rights within Iran,” Aliyar continued.