After weeks of warning that continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon would jeopardize diplomacy, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel in two months on Sunday night, raising fresh doubts about the prospects of a peace deal between the United States and Iran.
Israel and the United States have sought to separate Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon from the broader U.S.-Israel war against Iran, but Iran has consistently said it will not conclude a peace deal that does not extend to Lebanon.
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Last night’s attack confirmed this.
After Israel’s first attack on the southern outskirts of Beirut on Sunday, Iran fired missiles at Israel overnight in retaliation, despite assurances from the United States last week that Israel would not attack the Lebanese capital as long as Hezbollah refrained from attacking northern Israel.
“Tonight’s operation is a warning, and if the act of aggression is repeated, the response will be broader and include all American Zionist targets in the region,” the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said in a statement.
Israel responded by carrying out multiple attacks across Iran on Monday, including in the capital Tehran, despite US President Donald Trump reportedly telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to escalate. “I have the power to decide…he (Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu) does not have the power to decide,” he told Britain’s Financial Times on Sunday.
Tehran responded with a second salvo of missiles towards Israel. The majority of Iranian missiles have been intercepted, and there have been no deaths in Israel.
Nevertheless, the US president felt compelled to rebuke both parties on social media late Monday. “Israel and Iran should stop ‘shooting’ immediately,” he said in a short post on his Truth Social platform.
Beirut: Red Line
After the second wave of attacks, Iran’s armed forces declared an end to operations targeting Israel, but warned that further Israeli attacks on Lebanon would be met with “severe” attacks, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.
“Iran has condoned the recent Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon, but it has drawn a red line when it comes to Beirut,” Negar Mortazavi, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and founder of the Iran Podcast, told Al Jazeera.
“Last week, when Israel attempted to attack Beirut, the Iranian government sent a grave warning to Washington that it would not tolerate an attack on Beirut, only to prove that the warning was more than just a threat,” Mortazavi added.
This escalation raises serious questions. Did Iran’s direct attack in defense of Hezbollah demonstrate its readiness to abide by the red line that an Israeli attack on an ally would amount to a direct Iranian attack?
More broadly, observers question whether there is any chance of negotiating an end to the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, and potentially a permanent agreement with Tehran, while Israel continues its military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
fighting in lebanon
Lebanon was drawn into the U.S.-Israel war against Iran on March 2 after Tehran’s ally Hezbollah launched an attack on northern Israel.
Hezbollah said the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on February 28, the first day of the US-Israel war against Iran, and for Israel’s near-daily violations of the ceasefire agreed in Lebanon in November 2024.
At least 3,613 people have been killed and 11,072 injured in Israeli attacks across Lebanon since fighting resumed in March, according to the latest figures from the Lebanese Ministry of Health. Israel occupies nearly a fifth of the country and more than 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
A US-brokered ceasefire aimed at halting fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began on April 17, but Israeli attacks continued in the weeks that followed, including in the capital Beirut, where Israel announced it was targeting Hezbollah strongholds on Beirut’s southern outskirts.
Earlier this week, Lebanese and Israeli negotiators announced a further conditional ceasefire following talks in Washington.
But Hezbollah leader Naim Qasem rejected the ceasefire, calling it a “travesty” and saying attacks on northern Israel would continue as long as bombs were dropped on Lebanon.
“Together in war, together in peace”
One of the most important developments in the current conflict is that Iran is increasingly abandoning the logic that has long defined its regional posture, says Rob Geist-Pinfold, a lecturer in international security at King’s College London.
“Initially, the whole point of ‘forward defense’ was to prevent interstate conflict between Israel and Iran,” Geist Pinfold told Al Jazeera.
He noted that Iran has invested heavily in Hezbollah and other regional allies, including Yemen’s Houthis and many armed groups in Iraq and Syria, because it believes they can project proxy power and deter Israel more effectively than Iran’s conventional military power alone.
“What we’re seeing here is that Iran has completely changed its dynamics. Instead of using these proxy groups to fight for Iran, Iran is escalating itself as a state fighting for proxy groups.”
Iran fears that if it cannot protect Hezbollah, its proxies will be weakened one by one.
Mortazavi said Iran is currently tying any peace framework to the fate of its regional allies. “The Iranian government’s message is ‘together in war, together in peace,'” she added.
Nadhim Houry, executive director of Lebanon’s Arab Reform Initiative (ARI), similarly argues that Iran seeks to maintain its long-standing “united front” strategy to keep its network of regional alliances intact.
“To do that, we need to show that we can deter Israel from acting unilaterally against Lebanon,” Woolley said.
“Iran’s fear is that if it is unable to protect its most important proxy, Hezbollah, its regional proxies will be weakened one by one.”
“Calculated risk” or should we draw a new line?
Experts say the escalation appears to be both strategic and a statement of resolve.
“We cannot say that Iran has created an automatic trigger for direct Iranian intervention every time there is a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah,” Andreas Krieg, a professor at King’s College London’s School of Security Studies, told Al Jazeera.
“However, Iran has drawn a much stricter ‘red line’ around Lebanon than before.”
Krieg argues that Iran is seeking to redraw the boundaries of the ceasefire through controlled military force, rather than abandoning diplomacy altogether.
“This is a new ‘red line,’ but a flexible ‘red line,'” he said. “Iran wants ambiguity. It wants Israel to believe that further escalation in Lebanon could result in direct Iranian retaliation, but it also wants enough room to avoid getting drawn into an all-out war on Israel’s timeline.”
Beirut-based analyst Ali Risk said Tehran is likely counting on the calculation that Trump wants to avoid a broader conflict and instead secure a negotiated outcome. “There is a clear difference in priorities between the US and Israel right now,” Risk told Al Jazeera.
“I think President Trump would be willing to some extent to accommodate Iran’s interests in Lebanon if an agreement could be reached that addressed his main issues, such as the nuclear file and the Strait of Hormuz.”
Ending the war is ‘much harder’
Analysts have warned that if the United States fails to prevent Israeli actions that Tehran deems unacceptable, Iran may conclude that it cannot achieve the comprehensive ceasefire that the United States seeks.
“The key question is whether President Trump really intends to rein in Israel in any meaningful way,” Woolley said. “Will President Trump take concrete steps to put pressure on Israel, or will he just comply?”
Rizk said Trump finds himself in a “very difficult” position but is likely to pressure Israel to stop the escalation of the situation in Lebanon.
“Sacrificing talks with Iran just for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bombing of Lebanon will expose Prime Minister Netanyahu more than ever as an agent of Israel and could have a negative impact on the US midterm elections,” he warned. “Therefore, it is likely that he will work hard to prevent an escalation of diplomacy with Iran.”
For now, experts say a temporary freeze in hostilities remains possible, but lasting peace appears much more difficult to achieve.
“The more likely outcome is a pattern of violent retention: negotiations continue, Iran and Israel continue to test each other, Hezbollah remains active, and the United States seeks to prevent the regime from leaning into broader operations,” Krieg said.
