U.S. Envoy Tom Barrack on Monday (August 18, 2025) called on Israel to honour commitments under a ceasefire that ended its war with Hezbollah, after the Lebanese government launched a process to disarm the militant group.

Under the November truce, which ended more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group was to withdraw its fighters from near the Israeli border and weapons were to come under the control of the Lebanese state.

Israel was to withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them at five border points it deems strategic and has continued to strike Lebanon, threatening to do so until Hezbollah has been disarmed.

“There’s always a step-by-step approach but I think the Lebanese government has done their part. They’ve taken the first step. Now what we need is Israel to comply,” Barrack said following a meeting in Beirut with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

“We’re all moving in the right direction,” he said after meeting parliament speaker Nabih Berri.

Berri, a Hezbollah ally, said Israel’s commitment to the ceasefire and its troop withdrawal was “the gateway to stability in Lebanon”, a statement said.

‘Progress’

Asked by reporters whether he expected to see Israel fully withdraw from Lebanese territory and stop its violations, Barrack said that “that’s exactly the next step” needed.

“We need participation on the part of Israel, and we need an economic plan for prosperity, restoration and renovation,” the US diplomat added, with Lebanon weighed down by an economic crisis.

Barrack said Washington was “in the process of now discussing with Israel what their position is”, adding that “in the next few weeks you’re going to see progress on all sides.”

“It means a better life for the people… and at least the beginning of a roadway to a different kind of dialogue” in the region, he said.

The visit comes after Lebanon’s cabinet tasked the army with developing a plan to disarm Hezbollah by year end — an unprecedented step since civil war factions gave up their weapons decades ago.

The cabinet has also tackled a US proposal that includes a timetable for Hezbollah’s disarmament, with Washington pressing Lebanon to take action.

The cabinet endorsed the introduction of the US text, which lists 11 objectives including to “ensure the sustainability” of the ceasefire, and to phase out “the armed presence of all non-state actors, including Hezbollah” across all Lebanese territory.

It also provides for demarcating Lebanon’s land borders with Israel and neighbouring Syria, and a process involving the international community to support reconstruction.

‘Lebanese process’

Aoun told Barrack that what was needed was for “other parties to adhere to the contents” of the joint declaration, “more support for the Lebanese army”, and expedited steps towards reconstruction, the presidency said.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Washington needed to “fulfil its responsibility in pressuring Israel halt hostilities”, withdraw troops and release Lebanese prisoners it holds.

Hezbollah, the only faction that kept its weapons after Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, emerged badly weakened from last year’s war with Israel.

On Friday, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem vowed to fight plans to disarm, saying that “the resistance will not surrender its weapons while… occupation persists”.

On Sunday, Aoun told the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya channel authorities would do “everything possible… to spare Lebanon any internal or external shock”.

If Lebanon rejected the US plan, “then Israel will intensify its attacks, Lebanon will be economically isolated, and none of us will be able to respond to the aggression”, he said.

Barrack on Monday stressed that “dealing with Hezbollah, as we’ve always said, is a Lebanese process”.

Published – August 18, 2025 10:24 pm IST

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days’ fuel left before they must restrict services, afer the U.N. warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled.

The alarm came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas militants.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza where Israeli security services said Friday, they had killed two commanders involved in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.

Medics in the Palestinian territory said an overnight Israeli raid on Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

“We raise an urgent warning as all hospitals in Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry,” Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, said during a press conference.

The World Health Organization had already expressed grave concern Tuesday for hospitals still partly operating in Gaza.

“It’s getting harder and harder to get the aid in,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in Geneva.

Late Thursday, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: “The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt.”

In a statement, he said that for more than six weeks Israeli authorities “have been banning commercial imports” while “a surge in armed looting” has targeted aid convoys.

‘Absurd and false’

Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza, Israel on October 6 began its air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia.

Gaza’s civil defence rescue agency could not immediately give an exact toll after the latest Israeli raid, but the health ministry says Israel’s operation in the north has killed thousands.

The U.N. says more than 100,000 have been displaced from the area, and an oficial told the Security Council last week that people “are efectively starving”.

Issuing the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe they bore “criminal responsibility” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity including over “the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies”.

The unprecedented move drew a furious reaction from Netanyahu, who said in a statement: “Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions and accusations made against it.”

Netanyahu also said the judges were “driven by anti-Semitic hatred of Israel”.

On Friday he thanked his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban for his show of “moral clarity” for inviting him to visit in defiance of the ICC warrant which Orban branded “political”.

Hungary currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency.

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s top military supplier, called the warrants against Israeli leaders “outrageous”, but other world leaders expressed support for the court.

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said Friday Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot in the country.

Warrant for Hamas chief

The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, saying it had grounds to suspect him of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the attacks on Israel that sparked the war, and including “sexual and gender-based violence” against hostages.

Israel said it killed Deif in July, but Hamas has not confirmed his death.

On the day the warrants were issued, a UN representative said an Israeli raid on Syria this week was “likely the deadliest” by Israel on the country so far. On Friday a war monitor said the strikes on Palmyra killed 92 pro-Iran fighters.

Israel again bombed Gaza on Friday.

In Gaza City, just south of Jabalia, one man who said he took his cousins to hospital afer a strike urged “the world… to put an end” to the war.

“We’ve had enough,” said Belal, who gave only his first name and said 10 members of his family had been killed. “I’m the only one lef,” he said.

At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

Hamas triggered the war with the deadliest attack in Israeli history, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The war expanded to Lebanon in late September when Israel escalated air strikes against Iran backed Hezbollah and later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon against the group, after nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross border clashes which Hezbollah said were in support of Hamas.

Lebanon’s health ministry says more than 3,580 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them since late September.

Thousands of UN peacekeepers are based in southern Lebanon. They have reported coming under attack numerous times, blaming both Israel and “non-state” actors.

On Friday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Hezbollah was probably behind a rocket attack that hit their position and lef four Italian peacekeepers lightly hurt.

Israeli air strikes again hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold Friday, as well as south Lebanon, the oficial National News Agency said

A woman carries a frame that shows a portrait for Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, as she passes destroyed houses that were hit by Israeli airstrikes, in Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, on June 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran on June 29 warned that “all Resistance Fronts”, a grouping of Iran and its regional allies, would confront Israel if it attacks Lebanon.

The comment from Iran’s mission to New York comes with fears of a wider regional war involving Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. The two sides have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire since the war in Gaza began.

Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides. Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated”, prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.

In a post on social media platform X, the Iranian mission said it “deems as psychological warfare the Zionist regime’s propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon”.

But, it added, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue. All options, incl. the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table.”

The war in Gaza began in October when Hamas Palestinian militants attacked southern Israel.

Iran, which backs Hamas, has praised the attack as a success but has denied any involvement.

Alongside Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have repeatedly struck commercial ships in the Red Sea area in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Iran also backs other groups in the region.

The Islamic republic has not recognised Israel since the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s United States-backed shah.

Fears of regional war also soared in April, after an air strike that levelled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Iran hit back with an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13-14.

Iran’s state media later reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan as U.S. media quoted American officials saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival.

Tehran downplayed the reported Israeli raid.