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Iranian media said Tehran would not participate in talks while Israel continued to bomb Lebanon
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Donald Trump has reportedly berated Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a call aimed at ending fighting in Lebanon.
The US president is said to have told Netanyahu: “You’re f***ing crazy”, adding, “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” according to one US official who summarised the call to Axios.
After the call Trump announced that Hezbollah had told the US, via intermediaries, that it would agree to stop attacks on Israel if Israel did likewise. Netanyahu told Trump that Israel would resume attacks on “terror” targets in Beirut if the ceasefire did not hold.
Lebanon confirmed a partial ceasefire had been agreed between Hezbollah and Israel, though there were already reports of violations on Tuesday as both sides traded new attacks.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said the militia would support a full ceasefire across all Lebanon as a precursor to the withdrawal of Israeli troops. But Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations in southern Lebanon, their deepest incursion in the country in 25 years.
A senior official in Netanyahu’s office told Israeli outlet N12 News that reports on the call were “inaccurate.”
Secretary of state Marco Rubio has admitted that Iran retains “a lot of drones” as he testified before Congress on Tuesday.
He said that the US was in discussions with Iran on coming to an agreement about the ongoing conflict.
Rubio said there is a prospect that Iran has agreed to negotiate aspects of its nuclear program that they previously refused to mention in discussions.
They both favour bizarre cosmetic makeup. Both face legal jeopardy at home and they both took part in an illegal attack on Iran. Like the “brother in arms” the Israeli leader likes to make the US president feel, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu appear to bicker like siblings.
This is an appearance. Not reality. The relationship between the two leaders has been closer to that of an agent and his handler. It has always been “Bibi” who’s done the handling, and it is always The Don who has been handled.
This has delivered unimagined benefits to Netanyahu who, with the help of Trump acting against the advice of his own bands of court loyalists, has reduced America to a protector of Israel.
The Independent’s world affairs editor Sam Kiley reports:
Secretary of state Marco Rubio is to testify before Congress for the first time since the outbreak of the Iran war on Tuesday.
He will answer questions about the US’s foreign policy efforts around the world as sits before the House and Senate committees to make the State Department’s annual budget request.
In April, defence secretary Pete Hegseth faced intense scrutiny from furious Democrats during his first congressional appearance since the Trump administration initiated military action against Iran.
Lawmakers grilled Hegseth over the costly conflict, which has proceeded without congressional approval and has already amounted to $25 billion, according to Pentagon figures presented to the House Armed Services Committee.
The exchange of messages between Iranian and US officials in order to reach an agreement stopped a few days ago, a source has told Iran’s Fars news agency.
The latest message from Iran to the US was reportedly “a clear message about Lebanon”.
A British couple held in Tehran have lost their appeal against a 10-year prison sentence.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both 53, were arrested in January 2025 while travelling through Iran during an around-the-world motorcycle trip.
The couple, from East Sussex, were held in Tehran’s Evin prison, having been sentenced on espionage charges, which they vehemently deny.
A very senior official on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s team has called an Axios report on the discussion inaccurate, according to Israeli media outlet N12 News.
In a post on X on Tuesday, reporter Amit Segal wrote: “According to a very senior official on the PM’s team on the late-night Netanyahu-Trump call, the Axios report is inaccurate.
“Trump did not make personal remarks about jail or claim Netanyahu is hated globally. Instead, the tense call focused on conflicting social media posts: Trump felt Netanyahu implied the war was continuing at full intensity, while Netanyahu felt Trump implied a total ceasefire.
“Trump did note that defending Israel’s global position is difficult and breeds hatred. Ultimately, the call ended with an understanding: Israel will hold off on striking Beirut as long as it is not attacked within its own borders.”
As the fallout continues over Trump’s apparent raging verbal attack on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, let’s take a look at what is going on in southern Lebanon to lead to this point.
Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade fire despite an April 16 US-brokered ceasefire.
Before that point, Israel had deepened its invasion of southern Lebanon, displacing over a million people and killing more than 3,400 as it bombards areas with attacks it says are aimed at rooting out Hezbollah. Hezbollah has not released figures on its war dead.
Hezbollah has fired rockets and explosive drones at Israeli troops and northern Israeli towns. Israel says 26 soldiers and four civilians have been killed since March 2.
Netanyahu disputes criticism of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, arguing that air strikes under his watch have dealt Hezbollah blows. After Trump’s announcement on Monday of a new Israel-Hezbollah agreement, Netanyahu said Israel’s stance in the conflict “remains unchanged.”
Donald Trump lashed out at Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an expletive-laden phone call over Israel’s continued strikes in Lebanon on Monday, according to US media reports.
The US president was reportedly furious after Iran threatened to suspend peace talks with the US over Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, telling the Israeli prime minister that “everybody hates Israel” because of his actions.
In his public remarks after the two leaders spoke, Trump announced that a partial truce had been agreed between Israel and Hezbollah and that the call had been “very productive”.
But behind closed doors Trump is said to have yelled at Netanyahu over the phone, calling him “f****** crazy”, Axios reported late on Monday, citing two unnamed US officials familiar with the call.
Shweta Sharma reports:
A faulty interceptor missile launched by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system disintegrates above southern Lebanon, shortly after being launched by Israel, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel, June 1, 2026.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s main political opponents have slammed the Israeli prime minister for having “lost control of Israeli sovereignty” following reports of a blowout with Donald Trump.
“The location is different, the story is the same,” said Naftali Bennett, a right-wing security hawk and former premier who also criticizes Netanyahu over Hamas militants’ resurgence in Gaza.
“A government that has lost control of Israeli sovereignty,” Mr Bennett, who will challenge Netanyahu in the October elections, said in an X post.
Bennett and his coalition partner in the upcoming election, centrist Yair Lapid, have pressed for strikes against Hezbollah.
“A full protectorate,” Lapid said in an X post, in effect accusing Netanyahu of allowing the US to dictate Israeli military policy as if Israel was an American client state.
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