crossed the Litani River<\/a> last month \u2013 a point Israel had unilaterally set as a buffer zone to be cleared of Hezbollah elements \u2013 leading the Lebanese government to appeal for an end to foreign interference in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLast week, it was reported that US President Donald Trump had convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to target Beirut, understanding that such an escalation could end a regional ceasefire in place since April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli invasion has deepened tensions between Iran, which backs Hezbollah, and the Lebanese government, which is seeking exclusive control over weapons in the country. Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Thursday warned \u201cthere will be no calm in the region\u201d if Israel continued its occupation of southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun stressed that there is no way to end the war in the country \u201cexcept through negotiation and diplomacy\u201d and slammed Tehran for \u201cusing Lebanon as a bargaining chip in their negotiations\u201d with the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHezbollah must understand that [there is] no other way but to sit and talk\u201d he said, something Beirut is trying to achieve via direct talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Al Jazeera: Tehran, Iran \u2013\u00a0An\u00a0ongoing war of words between Beirut and Tehran\u00a0has highlighted the central role Lebanon has played in a ceasefire between Iran and the United States. Iran on Sunday responded to an Israeli strike on an alleged Hezbollah site in southern Beirut \u2013 a red line for Tehran \u2013 by launching a barrage of missiles at Israel. Israel then hit Tehran and other cities on Monday, threatening to end a two-month ceasefire between Iran and the US. Tensions had already heightened after Israeli forces crossed the Litani River last month \u2013 a point Israel had unilaterally set as a buffer zone to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58396,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58394\/revisions\/58396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}