Written by Layla Hassan
BEIRUT/ISLAMABAD — Multiple explosions shook southern Beirut on Sunday afternoon as Israel said it struck Hezbollah’s headquarters in the Lebanese capital, a day after an Israeli strike killed three Lebanese army soldiers including a brigadier general — an attack Beirut called a deliberate sabotage of peace efforts.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that the army hit Hezbollah’s central command. At least three large blasts were reported in the southern suburbs of the capital. Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said the attack was aimed at thwarting all efforts to reach a solution, while Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called it a heinous crime and an attack on Lebanon and all Lebanese people.
The killings on Saturday drew an unusually sharp rebuke from Washington. President Donald Trump had reportedly asked Netanyahu to refrain from attacking Beirut, according to Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem reporting from the capital. The State Department called the strike on the Lebanese army deeply troubling.
Funerals for the three soldiers — Brigadier General Wissam Sabra, Captain Elie Khoury, and soldier Hussein Ghozal — were held Sunday. Lebanon’s army chief Rodolphe Haykal left for Pakistan on Saturday, a surprise visit amid the ongoing mediation effort. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi had just returned from Tehran carrying a letter from Pakistan’s army chief to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
Lebanon was drawn into the war when Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel on March 2, following joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran. Tehran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah a condition for any peace deal with Washington. A conditional ceasefire announced last week in Washington was rejected by Hezbollah as it did not include the group or provide for Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since hostilities resumed on March 2, according to the health ministry.
In Washington, Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview aired Sunday that the US and Iran are very close to a final deal, and expressed hope that Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — injured in the Israeli strike that killed his father on February 28 and not seen publicly since — is more rational than his late father.
Younger. I think more rational, Trump said when asked how the new supreme leader compares to the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Injured. He’s pretty badly injured. So there’s a certain bravery there.
Trump reiterated that Iran must surrender its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium — a few technical steps from weapons-grade — and kept the option of taking it by force on the table. Not an endless war, he said. The president rejected criticism that his administration has entered another prolonged conflict, saying he expects a deal within weeks.
US forces shot down two more Iranian attack drones over the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, the sixth interception in 48 hours near the strategic shipping chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows.
— Layla Hassan, Media Hook | Beirut