Israel’s attacks on Lebanon could unravel the US-Iran ceasefire | Mohamad Bazzi

Trump is on the verge of squandering a ceasefire that serves US interests for the sake of an unreliable allyWhen Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, that the US and Iran, along with their allies, had agreed to an immediate ceasefire on Tuesday night, he made clear that the truce applied “everywhere including Lebanon”. But hours later, the Israeli government insisted that the deal halting its attacks on Lebanon, which had become one of the deadliest fronts of the regional war instigated by the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran.By Wednesday afternoon, Israel had and most destructive attack on Lebanon in years, killing at least 300 people and wounding more than 1,100. Dozens of Israeli warplanes on 100 targets across Lebanon within 10 minutes, with the Israeli military claiming it was targeting Hezbollah “command centers” in an operation it called “Eternal Darkness”. But Israeli warplanes leveled several buildings in crowded residential neighborhoods of Beirut, spreading panic in the Lebanese capital and with hundreds of casualties. Israel also continued bombing Lebanon’s infrastructure, destroying the that linked southern Lebanon to the rest of the country.Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University