Israel and Hezbollah renewed a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon on Friday after 24 hours of intense violence that threatened to unravel the Trump administration’s broader Middle East peace framework. The renewed fighting — Hezbollah killed four Israeli soldiers, and Israeli retaliatory airstrikes in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley killed at least 47 people, according to officials — posed an early challenge to the agreement the US and Iran signed this week opening a 60-day window for negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The renewed violence derailed a diplomatic meeting scheduled for Friday in Switzerland between Washington and Tehran to discuss implementation of the deal. The White House confirmed that Vice President JD Vance, who has been leading peace negotiations for the US, would not fly to Switzerland for the summit. Vance’s staff had been at an airbase preparing to depart when the trip was abruptly cancelled, following the Hezbollah-Israel exchanges.
President Trump defended the agreement with Iran in a series of social media posts on Friday. “The War has diminished Iran!” he wrote. “We didn’t meet out of desperation, Iran did. They are FINISHED! We’ll play out the 60 days. They get no money, not ten cents!” The deal has faced criticism from some of Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, who question whether the US president conceded too much to end a war that remains unpopular with most Americans ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Former President Barack Obama weighed in on the conflict in an interview with NBC News that aired Friday. “We’ve now fought a war, spent billions and billions of dollars, you know, put enormous strain on our military. A lot of people have died. And it feels like we’re back where we were before we started the war, except maybe a little bit worse off,” Obama said.
In other developments from the Trump administration on Friday:
The president unveiled a new Air Force One jet at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. The aircraft, designated VC-25B, was given to the US by the Gulf emirate of Qatar. The $400 million gift has provoked political protest because it exceeds the legal limit on unsolicited gifts of $50 in value in a single calendar year from the same source.
Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, became acting director of national intelligence on Friday. Tulsi Gabbard, the outgoing DNI, had initially planned to leave her post on June 30, but Trump shortened her tenure to Friday after a tug-of-war with Washington lawmakers over the intelligence post.
The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into Major League Baseball after the league criticized three San Francisco Giants players who wrote Bible verses on their hats during the team’s Pride Night.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Trump “totally invented” a story about her, after the president claimed she begged him for a photo during the G7 summit.
A federal judge rejected former President Joe Biden’s attempt to block the Trump administration from releasing recordings Biden made with a ghostwriter to a conservative group.
The small town of Social Circle, Georgia, announced that the Department of Homeland Security has cancelled plans to turn a warehouse into one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country.