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By Brendan Cole, Toby Meyjes, and Steve Mollman
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Iran said on Saturday that it was closing the Strait of Hormuz again, citing ongoing Israeli strikes in Lebanon and accusing the United States of failing to uphold a fragile war-ending deal. The closure, announced by Iran’s military command, came as violence continued in southern Lebanon after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was reached.
But U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Saturday morning that “the straits really are open,” adding, “We are not seeing any evidence that the Iranians are still closing down the Strait of Hormuz.”
U.S. Central Command announced that "commercial ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz increased June 20 as U.S. forces continued operating in the general area to support freedom of navigation."
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Amid the mixed signals, Iranian state television said a negotiating team was heading to Switzerland for talks with the U.S., after a planned trip the previous day had been canceled. Pakistan, a key mediator, said technical-level talks would begin Sunday, with Qatari mediators also participating.
Israel and Hezbollah had reached a ceasefire Friday after a surge in fighting, but the conflict resumed almost immediately. Israeli strikes on Saturday killed at least 16 people in southern Lebanon, including children, according to local officials, while Israel said the attacks followed a barrage of projectiles fired by Hezbollah overnight.
The renewed violence has widened the stakes beyond Lebanon, threatening the broader U.S.-Iran deal meant to halt fighting across multiple fronts and raising fresh doubts about whether it can hold.
Israel's Hardline Rhetoric
The Israel-Hezbollah clashes have exposed political pressure inside Israel, where hardline voices have urged a more aggressive response. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said “all of Lebanon must burn” in a post on X.
“I told the prime minister, even in our private meetings: For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep,” he wrote.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reacted to those comments on Friday, writing on X: "This is not a rant by a random genocidal lunatic. It's a public post by the national security minister of the Israeli regime. The genocidal death cult headquartered in Tel Aviv is a threat to all of humanity. It threatens all humans. Its only interest is permanent war."
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Beni Sabti, an Iran researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, dismissed Ben-Gvir's remarks as election-driven rhetoric, telling Newsweek that Israel’s “radicals are not relevant” to official policy.
“It’s not in Israeli policy to burn any place,” Sabti said.
However, the remarks underscore a key sticking point in the effort to end the Iran war: Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon, which began after joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 aimed in part at degrading Tehran’s nuclear program.
Even with a ceasefire in place, the Lebanon front remains central to the deal, as earlier clashes and competing regional demands could determine whether it holds.
The diplomatic push also continued Friday. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who stressed that a “comprehensive ceasefire” is needed to halt Israeli attacks and move forward with negotiations.
Rubio reaffirmed U.S. support for Lebanon’s government and its efforts “to create a fully sovereign Lebanese state that is at peace with all its neighbors,” according to a State Department spokesperson, and reiterated the need to disarm Hezbollah and re-establish control over all Lebanese territory, as officials discussed the next round of talks expected in Washington in the coming days.
Trump Framework Faces Pressure Over Lebanon
The U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Wednesday, which was scheduled to be discussed on Friday in Switzerland, but talks have been delayed amid objections from Israel and Republican lawmakers over accusations that it requires too few concessions from Tehran.
Ben-Gvir and Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich were criticized by U.S. Vice President JD Vance for disparaging the deal to end the war. Vance told The New York Times: "You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have."
Israel-Hezbollah Fighting Tests US-Iran Deal
The framework deal calls for an end to military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.
Vance also told reporters at the White House on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet should remember that the U.S. provides Israel with most of its defense capabilities. He added, "Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel."
And President Donald Trump on Sunday warned Iran, posting to Truth Social: "Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!"
Israel’s military said Friday its forces struck targets throughout southern Lebanon as Hezbollah reported intense fighting. Israel also said it hit two Hezbollah command centers in Lebanon’s eastern Beqaa Valley on Friday.
Israel's overnight strikes on southern Lebanon's Nabatieh area were among the most intense bombardments of the war. Hezbollah said it had ambushed an Israeli group, destroying three tanks with guided missiles, and targeting troops with rocket and artillery fire.
The IDF posted on X that in response to Hezbollah’s "repeated & blatant ceasefire violations," it had struck two of the group's command centers in the Beqaa Valley and that over 80 "terror targets" in southern Lebanon had been eliminated.
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Lebanon Fighting Is Key Obstacle to Trump Deal
Both Israel and Hezbollah have carried out strikes against each other since the agreement was announced on Wednesday.
Iran’s threats to collapse the deal unless Israel ceases operations and withdraws from Lebanon are an attempt to compel the U.S. to pressure Israel to end operations as Trump prioritizes preserving the deal, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in an analysis on Thursday.
Lebanon remains the biggest obstacle to the full implementation of the U.S.-Iran deal, said Vuk Vuksanovic, an associate at LSE IDEAS, the foreign policy think tank of the London School of Economics.
"For Iranians, this has become a symbolic focal point of their resistance against the U.S. and Israel, through which Iranians seek to demonstrate their regional geopolitical weight," he told Newsweek before the latest Israeli strikes.
Iran wants to reconstitute its network of alliances across the region, known as the Axis of Resistance, aware that the weakening of Hezbollah and the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria preceded two U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran, he added.
"By including Lebanon in the final deal, Iran is testing the US's ability to rein in Israel," said Vuksanovic, "Lebanon is the biggest challenge for both the implementation of the US-Iran deal and relations between Israel and the Trump administration."
Why Lebanon Is Caught Up in the War
Lebanon became embroiled in the war days after it started when Iranian-backed Hezbollah launched rockets from the country into northern Israel. Israeli troops now occupy a swath of southern Lebanon amid military operations that have displaced more than one million people.
At least 3,912 people have been confirmed killed in Lebanon, according to the country’s health authorities, which do not provide a civilian-combatant breakdown.
Israel invaded Lebanon in March following rocket fire from Hezbollah. By the end of March, the IDF had multiple divisions operating in Lebanon tied to a "buffer zone" up to or toward the Litani River, with estimates that Israel was controlling roughly 220 square miles of Lebanese territory.
On Thursday, Israel published a map showing its expanded military control zone in southern Lebanon. A senior Israeli official was cited by Reuters as saying there were negotiations with the Trump administration over keeping its troops deployed 6.2 miles into southern Lebanon.
Israel has rejected calls to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon, which is a part of the interim deal signed by Trump, saying that their presence is essential to rebuff the threat posed by Hezbollah.
Israeli attacks and the destruction of villages have displaced more than one million people, and the Israeli military's ongoing presence has raised fears about a prolonged occupation, such as one that ended in 2000.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Newsweek earlier this month that it "considers that Israel remains in control of certain areas in southern Lebanon, and so the law of occupation applies in those areas.
"In any case, IHL (international humanitarian law) continues to apply to any military operation in Lebanon, whether on the ground or in the air."
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters on Friday that Iran had informed the group that Tehran's talks with the U.S. required a comprehensive ceasefire, tying the deal to the fighting in Lebanon.
Zev Faintuch, head of research and intelligence at Global Guardian, a security firm, told Newsweek earlier in June that Israel was trying to accumulate leverage for an agreement and a mechanism for the Lebanese government or some other force to disarm Hezbollah in exchange for territory.
"It's about having some form of a bargaining chip and obviously a physical barrier to prevent Hezbollah expeditionary forces from being able to come across the border," he said.
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