Exclusive: Hezbollah Says It Won't Join Fight After US Attacks Iran
Hezbollah signed a ceasefire with Israel last November, just over a year after the Palestinian Hamas movement launched a surprise attack against Israel, sparking a regional conflict that drew in the Iran-led Axis of Resistance coalition.
Israel and Hezbollah have since continued to accuse one another of violating the truce. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out strikes in recent days against the group's leadership, special forces and military infrastructure in Lebanon, citing "intelligence indicating Hezbollah's attempts to rebuild its capabilities."
"Despite the attacks carried out by the Israeli enemy," the Hezbollah spokesperson added, "the party has remained committed to the agreement."
Hezbollah had previously indicated to Newsweek that the group would not intervene directly in support of Tehran after Israel launched a sweeping series of strikes against Iran last week, setting off daily exchanges of fire between the longtime foes.
Yet Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Friday that Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem "hasn't learned from his predecessors and is threatening to act against Israel." He urged that "the Lebanese proxy be careful and understand that Israel has lost patience with the terrorists who threaten it."
The Hezbollah spokesperson with whom Newsweek spoke the following day emphasized that Qassem, who assumed the helm after Israel killed longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah last September, has "supported" Iran through his statements, and that future actions may affect the group's calculus.
"Therefore, the issue remains subject to developments," the Hezbollah spokesperson said. "However, Iran certainly has its own military capabilities."
Trump first announced via Truth Social late Saturday, early Sunday local time in Iran, that the U.S. had completed a "very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan."
The strikes came after more than a week of speculation of forthcoming U.S. military intervention, fueled by aircraft movements, the evacuation of nonessential staff and U.S. citizens in the region as well as Trump's own threats to the Islamic Republic and its leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant had particularly been in focus given that current and former Israeli officials had long assessed only the U.S. military's Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) "bunker buster" bombs would be capable of destroying the heavily fortified underground facility located beneath a mountain around 20 miles from the city of Qom.
Addressing the nation from the East Room late Saturday, Trump said that "Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated." He indicated that he was not immediately planning to pursue further military action against Iran but threatened to do so "if peace does not come quickly."
Iran has always denied seeking a nuclear weapon, but the country has substantially ramped up uranium enrichment since Trump abandoned a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran and major powers during his first administration in 2018.
Since Trump assumed office again in January, Tehran and Washington have engaged in five rounds of talks toward securing a new agreement through which Iran's nuclear program would be subject to restriction in exchange for sanctions relief.
A sixth round of negotiations had been scheduled for last Sunday, but was canceled after Israel launched its unprecedented series of attacks against Iran, killing senior commanders and nuclear scientists as well as targeting military sites and nuclear facilities. Shortly after the Israeli campaign began, Israeli officials alleged that Iran had obtained enough nuclear material to produce 15 nuclear bombs.
Iran has responded to Israeli attacks by launching hundreds of missiles and drones against Israel over the past week. Iranian officials had warned that U.S. bases in the region could be subject to retaliatory action as well if the U.S. became directly involved in the conflict.
Other Axis of Resistance groups in the Middle East, including Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah and Yemen's Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthi movement, have also warned of potential attacks against U.S. positions in the region in the event of a U.S. strike against Iran.
About an hour after Trump announced the U.S. operation against Iran on social media, the IDF issued a heightened state of alert for Israel, restricting the public from engaging in all but "Essential Activity."
Iran later conducted a new around of missile strikes against Israel, followed by an IDF report of Israeli strikes being conducted in western Iran.
Reached for comment, the Iranian Mission to the United Nations shared with Newsweek a social media statement alongside a letter in which Iranian Permanent Representative to the U.N. Amir Saeid Iravani expressed to U.N. leadership his condemnation of what he called "unprovoked and premeditated acts of aggression" by the U.S. and urged the U.N. Security Council to take action.
"The United States and the bloodthirsty Zionist Regime of Israel shall be held fully accountable for these flagrant violations of international law and must face the grave consequences thereof," the Iranian Mission said.
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Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Zelenskyy brings Europe's top leaders with him to meet Trump on ending Russia's war
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that a ceasefire was still possible but that 'the best way to end this conflict is through a full peace deal." The issues on the table for the European allies European officials confirmed that Trump told them Putin is still seeking control of the entire Donbas region, even though Ukraine controls a meaningful share of it. And Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the U.S. and its allies could offer Ukraine a NATO-like commitment to defend the country if it came under attack as the possible security guarantee. "How that's constructed, what we call it, how it's built, what guarantees are built into it that are enforceable, that's what we'll be talking about over the next few days with our partners who are coming in from overseas,' Rubio told NBC's 'Meet the Press.' Rubio said on Fox News' 'Sunday Morning Futures' that such a commitment 'would be a very big move" by Trump. 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Zelenskyy is looking to avoid another Oval Office blowup After enduring a public tirade by Trump and Vice President JD Vance in February, Zelenskyy worked to repair relations with the U.S. Constant diplomatic communication and a 15-minute meeting at the Vatican in April on the sidelines of Pope Francis' funeral helped turn the tide. Trump appeared at the time to be swayed by Zelenskyy's conditions for peace. But Trump says he cares primarily about ending the war, an ambition that led him after his meeting with Putin to discard the need for a ceasefire. European allies also have worked with Trump, reaching a deal in July for NATO allies to buy weapons from the U.S. for Ukraine. Ahead of Monday's meeting, France's Macron stressed the importance of building up Ukraine's military and the need to show Putin that Europe interprets his moves as a threat to other nations. 'If we are weak with Russia today, we'll be preparing the conflicts of tomorrow and they will impact the Ukrainians and — make no mistake — they can impact us, too,' Macron said. ___ Kullab reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press writer John Leicester contributed from Le Pecq, France.
Boston Globe
18 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Zelenskyy brings backup to the White House as Trump aligns more closely with Putin
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Advertisement One senior European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of angering Trump, described a sense of panic among European allies. The diplomat had not seen a meeting like the one set for Monday come together so quickly since just before the Iraq War. The foremost concern, the diplomat said, was to avoid another scene like the one that took place in February when Zelenskyy met with Trump in front of the television cameras at the White House. At that meeting, Trump berated the Ukrainian president, saying 'you don't have the cards' in the war -- essentially telling a weak foreign power to bend to the demands of a far more powerful one. The president did so again Friday night, after Putin flew back to the Russian Far East, telling a Fox News interviewer that Ukraine was going to have to realize that Russia was a more 'powerful' country, and that power meant Zelenskyy was going to have to make concessions. On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who sat in on the meetings with Putin at the U.S. air base outside Anchorage, Alaska, disputed the idea that the Europeans were coming as a posse to protect Zelenskyy from a repeat of the February shouting match. 'They're not coming here to keep Zelenskyy from getting bullied,' Rubio insisted to Margaret Brennan on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' 'They are coming here tomorrow because we've been working with the Europeans,' he said, listing the many meetings the United States had engaged in before and after the Putin visit. 'We invited them to come.' European officials said Saturday that Trump told Zelenskyy he was free to bring guests to the meeting, and later the White House extended invitations to several European leaders. Advertisement Whatever the motive for the leaders to upend their schedules on short notice, there is little question that elements of the negotiation will test the cohesiveness of the Atlantic alliance. 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The message was clear: Defending Ukraine was Europe's problem, not Washington's. That was a wedge that Putin sought to exploit in Anchorage, and he did it skillfully. Trump has adopted many of Putin's talking points, and few of the West's. Even before he met face to face with Putin, he assured the Russian leader that Ukraine's application to join NATO would be put on long-term hold -- a position that his predecessor, Joe Biden, also took. At various moments, he hinted that Ukraine invited invasion by applying to the alliance and to membership in the European Union. Advertisement After the Friday summit with Putin, he went another step. Trump and European allies had agreed last week that a ceasefire must precede a peace accord, but he abandoned that view and sided with the Russian leader. 'With Trump abandoning the ceasefire, but making no reference to the 'severe consequences' he threatened, we are at a dangerous moment for the alliance,' said James G. Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral who served as NATO's supreme allied commander from 2009-13, when the United States still viewed Russia as a NATO partner, if a difficult one. This is exactly the kind of split that European leaders were trying to avoid after Trump's return to power in January. NATO's new secretary-general, Mark Rutte, a former prime minister of the Netherlands, visited Washington frequently for quiet meetings with Trump. He was determined to avoid the kind of public breach that took place in the first term, when Trump came to the edge of withdrawing the United States from what he called an 'obsolete' alliance. Rutte helped engineer the announcement in June, at a NATO summit, that nearly all members of the alliance had committed to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense. (Of that, 1.5% is infrastructure spending only tangentially related to military spending.) That gave Trump an early win -- and demonstrated that, even if a decade late, Europe was getting serious about taking responsibility for its own defense. Trump took credit, and left the summit praising NATO's reforms. Then European leaders designed the program to buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine, recognizing its appeal to the president. The United States could remain Ukraine's arms supplier, but at no cost to American taxpayers. Advertisement The strategy seemed to be paying off a few weeks ago, when Trump castigated Putin for holding friendly conversations while continuing to kill civilians. He set deadlines and threatened to impose secondary sanctions on countries that were buying oil from Russia. For the first time since Trump's inauguration, Washington's approach, including the threat of new sanctions on Russian oil and gas if there was no ceasefire, and Europe's continued military and economic pressure seemed roughly aligned. Last Wednesday, European leaders talked with Trump, and he agreed to hold firm with Putin that a ceasefire must precede a longer peace negotiation. That alignment is what blew up in Anchorage. 'It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement,' Trump wrote on his social media site early Saturday. Trump's flip-flops stand in contrast to Putin's determination to stay the course with the war, even as the body count of Russians killed has soared. 'Peace will come when we achieve our goals,' he proclaimed in late 2023. Even then, Putin privately was sending signals that he was open to discussing a ceasefire, but only if it froze existing battle lines -- meaning Ukraine would have to cede control over roughly 20% of its territory. His overtures were rebuffed at the time. But now the Russian military is making considerable gains, so Putin no longer has interest in a ceasefire. 'They feel like they've got momentum in the battlefield,' Rubio said, 'and frankly, don't care, don't seem to care very much about how many Russian soldiers die in this endeavor.' Advertisement 'It's a meat grinder,'' he added, 'and they just have more meat to grind.' That reality would seem to suggest that the timing is hardly right for a peace agreement. Putin may calculate his best strategy is to drag out the talks. But when European and U.S. officials gather at the White House on Monday, they will have more to discuss than just boundaries. The Europeans have to find a way to bring Trump on board for concrete security guarantees for Ukraine -- which could include a peacekeeping force that would deter Putin from restarting the war in a few years. In his conversation with European leaders after the Putin summit, Trump suggested for the first time that he might be willing to join that effort -- though the assumption is that he would contribute U.S. intelligence, not troops. In London on Sunday, after a virtual meeting of European countries that call themselves a 'coalition of the willing' -- a phrase used in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a statement that commended Trump for his 'commitment to providing security guarantees for Ukraine.' That phrasing seemed intended to lock him into the effort. The statement reiterated that the United Kingdom and other European nations were ready to 'deploy a reassurance force once hostilities have ceased, and to help secure Ukraine's skies and seas and regenerate Ukraine's armed forces.' The United States has never been that specific. This article originally appeared in .
New York Times
19 minutes ago
- New York Times
Zelensky Calls for ‘Lasting' Peace, and Warns of Russia's Intentions
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Sunday called for a 'lasting' peace to end the war there, and warned that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had previously seized Ukrainian land as 'a springboard for a new attack.' Mr. Zelensky made the comments on social media after he arrived in Washington ahead of planned high-stakes meetings at the White House on Monday with President Trump and several European leaders. Mr. Trump met Mr. Putin in Alaska on Friday for talks on Ukraine that ended without the cease-fire Mr. Trump had been insisting was necessary to secure a peace deal. Instead, he backed Mr. Putin's plan for a sweeping peace agreement based on Ukraine ceding territory it controls to Russia. Russia already occupies almost a fifth of Ukraine, including the entire Crimean Peninsula and large portions of an eastern region known as the Donbas. Mr. Trump told European leaders after his Alaska meeting that a peace deal could be struck quickly if Mr. Zelensky agreed to give up the rest of the Donbas. In his comments on Sunday, Mr. Zelensky appeared to subtly push back against that idea — not directly, but by describing Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine as a cautionary tale. 'We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably,' he wrote. 'And peace must be lasting. Not like it was years ago, when Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our East — part of Donbas — and Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack.' Mr. Zelensky said the 'so called' security guarantees that Ukraine received from Russia, the United States and Britain under a 1994 accord — in exchange for giving old Soviet nuclear weapons back to Russia — also had not worked. 'Of course, Crimea should not have been given up then, just as Ukrainians did not give up Kyiv, Odesa, or Kharkiv after 2022,' he wrote, referring to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine that year. Mr. Zelensky will meet Mr. Trump at the White House early Monday afternoon. Later in the day, they will be joined by the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Italy, as well as the secretary general of NATO and the president of the European Union's executive arm. Mr. Trump's recent reversal on a critical negotiating point for Ukraine and Europe — obtaining a cease-fire before negotiating land or security guarantees — has left many European officials wondering whether Mr. Trump was swayed by Mr. Putin in Alaska.
