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Netanyahu says US-Iran ceasefire ‘does not include Lebanon’
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Israeli prime minister’s office welcomes US decision to suspend attacks on Iran, but says the two-week truce does not apply to Lebanon. Save Share Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has announced that Israel backs the United States’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, but said the truce “does not include Lebanon”. In a statement on X on Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel supported US President Donald Trump’s efforts to ensure “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbors and the world”. He said the US has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals in the upcoming negotiations in Pakistan’s Islamabad on Friday. But the two-week ceasefire “does not include Lebanon”, he added. Netanyahu’s statement comes after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that the US, Iran and their allies “have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere”. Sharif said the move was “effective immediately”. Lebanon was drawn into the war on March 2 after Iran-aligned Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel. Hezbollah said the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 as well as its near-daily violations of a ceasefire it agreed in Lebanon in November of 2024. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have since killed more than 1,500 people and displaced more than 1 million people. The Israeli military has also launched an invasion of southern Lebanon and said it aims to seize more territory for what it calls a buffer zone. There’s been no immediate comment from Hezbollah or Lebanon.