U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that Washington never indicated Lebanon would be included in the ceasefire with Iran, attributing Tehran’s claims to the contrary to a “legitimate misunderstanding” about the terms.
“I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” Vance told reporters on the tarmac in Budapest, Hungary. “There’s a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad faith, you know, propaganda, going on. I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding,” he said.
“We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case,” continued Vance, who is set to lead a U.S. delegation to Pakistan on Saturday for talks aimed at ending the war on the Islamic Republic.
“What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran and the ceasefire would be focused on America’s allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states,” according to the vice president.
However, Israel has offered “to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful,” Vance stated. “That’s not because that is part of the ceasefire. I think that’s the Israelis trying to set us up for success.”
“Look, if Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart—in a conflict where they were getting hammered—over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice. We think that would be dumb, but that’s their choice,” he concluded.
Hezbollah began firing rockets and suicide drones at Israel on March 2, in retaliation for the Jewish state’s targeted killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the opening strikes of “Operation Roaring Lion/Epic Fury” on Feb. 28.
In response to the terrorist organization’s violation of the U.S.-brokered Nov. 27, 2024, truce agreement, Jerusalem launched an aerial campaign against Hezbollah and ordered IDF troops to advance and take control of additional areas in Southern Lebanon to halt cross-border attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed in an address on Wednesday night that Lebanon is not part of the truce with Iran.
“I insisted that the temporary ceasefire with Iran not include Hezbollah. And we continue to strike them forcefully,” the premier said in a prime time address following the conclusion of the Passover holiday in Israel.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli Air Force launched its largest coordinated strikes against Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon since the start of “Operation Roaring Lion.”
The large-scale wave of attacks targeted Hezbollah headquarters, military infrastructure and command-and-control centers in Beirut, the Beqaa Valley and Southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli army.
Netanyahu said Hezbollah on Wednesday suffered “the greatest blow since the pagers,” in reference to the Sept. 17-18, 2024, attacks in Lebanon, which wounded thousands of terrorist operatives. “We attacked 100 targets in 10 minutes, in places Hezbollah was certain were immune,” he said.
