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ceasefire
Despite Ceasefire With Iran, Israel Pummels Lebanon With ‘Apocalyptic’ Strikes
Mediators said Lebanon was included in the ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran. Netanyahu said it “does not include Lebanon" and launched the largest attack of the war so far.
Apr 08, 2026
Israel made it abundantly clear on Wednesday that it does not consider Lebanon to be protected by Tuesday night’s ceasefire that halted hostilities for two weeks between the US and Iran.
Hours after the ceasefire was reached, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that it had begun "the largest coordinated strike across Lebanon," since it began its assault on the country in early March, with bombardments on what it said were Hezbollah targets across Beirut, Bekaa, and southern Lebanon.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, at least 87 people have been killed and more than 700 wounded across the country.
Hezbollah reportedly held its fire against Israel after Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated the agreement, said on Tuesday that "Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY."
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Wednesday that, at least in Israel's eyes, the two-week agreement “does not include Lebanon." Israel said much of what was hit was located “within the heart of the civilian population."
Images and videos posted to social media show scenes that one resident described as "apocalyptic." Many of the attacks reportedly came without warning.
"Families were caught completely by surprise, with no time to escape," the resident said.
According to The Guardian:
Warplanes leveled several buildings in the center of the capital city without warning, filling the skies with smoke and the sounds of sirens as ambulances headed to impact sites.
The streets of Beirut were filled with cars crumpled by the blasts and the flaming wreckage of buildings that first responders struggled to extinguish.
People rushed home to check on their families; a man filmed as he ran towards a struck building in the Chiyah neighbourhood, screaming: “There are people inside!”
Pictures of rubble-covered children circulated on social media as people tried to find their parents.
Israel said it attacked more than 100 targets in less than 10 minutes.
Many more people remain trapped beneath the rubble, according to Haaretz, and full casualty counts have not yet been conducted. Meanwhile, hospitals across Beirut are overflowing with injured people, and first responders have issued urgent appeals for blood donations.
"The wounded and casualties are numerous," said Lebanese Red Cross head Georges Kettaneh, according to the Lebanese news network LBCI. "We are doing everything we can to save them.”
Israel launched another wave of attacks across other parts Lebanon, including a strike on an ambulance in Tyre that killed at least four people, according to local sources.
A bombing in the port city of Sidon left eight people dead and 22 injured. Video from local media outlets shows a local cafe lying in ruins as residents run in fear and paramedics rush to transport the wounded.
Other footage posted by local media showed a gigantic plume of smoke rising above a village in Shamstar, where mourners were reportedly attacked during a funeral procession.
Lebanon's prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said on social media: "Whilst we welcomed the agreement between Iran and the United States, and stepped up our efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, Israel continues to escalate its attacks, which have targeted densely populated residential neighborhoods and claimed the lives of unarmed civilians across Lebanon."
He added that Israel was "showing no regard for regional and international efforts to end the war, let alone the principles of international law and international humanitarian law, which it has never respected in the first place."
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said Israel planned to continue the attacks "without stopping."
The attacks are already threatening to torpedo the ceasefire between the US and Iran in its infancy. Hezbollah legislator Ibrahim Al-Moussawi has warned of a response from Iran if Israel continues to attack Lebanon.
“The agreement includes Lebanon, according to its terms, and Iran insisted on this inclusion,” Al-Moussawi told local television channel Al-Jadeed.
According to Iran's Fars News Agency, it has once again halted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israel's attack, putting in jeopardy a core piece of the agreement—that the waterway would be reopened.
Already, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,500 people in Lebanon since the beginning of March, including at least 130 children. Israeli evacuation orders have forced more than 1.2 million people—one in five—to flee their homes, and the military has pressured Christian and Druse communities and southern Lebanon to force out Shia Muslims in neighboring communities, which has been described by observers as a push for ethnic cleansing.
Israel routinely violated its previous ceasefire with Lebanon that began in November 2024 with more than 10,000 air and land attacks over the first year, which the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said demonstrated a “total disregard of the ceasefire agreement.” It has done the same in Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since a ceasefire began in October 2025.
The Beirut-based journalist Séamus Malekafzali warned that by launching the "largest attacks... of this war so far" immediately after the US and Iran reached a tentative agreement, Israel was attempting to create conditions that make a durable ceasefire impossible.
He said, "Israel is attempting to create facts on the ground regarding this ceasefire and the supposed stopping of the war on all fronts, not just Iran."
UPDATE: This article has been edited following publication to contain more updated casualty numbers from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
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Dems Say Iran Ceasefire Doesn't Change Fact That 'Unstable, Unhinged, and Unfit' Trump Must Go
"Whether by his Cabinet or Congress, the president must be removed from office," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "We are playing with the brink."
Apr 08, 2026
US President Donald Trump's whiplash-inducing announcement late Tuesday of a two-week ceasefire with Iran did nothing to diminish calls for his removal from office, with Democratic lawmakers arguing that the president's genocidal threat earlier in the day—and his decision to launch the illegal war in the first place—cannot be walked back.
"The president has threatened a genocide against the Iranian people, and is continuing to leverage that threat," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in a statement after the deal was announced. "He has launched a massive war of enormous risk and of catastrophic consequence without reason, rationale, nor congressional authorization—which is as clear a violation of the Constitution as any."
"Each day this goes on, the risk and criminality of these actions escalate for our nation and the world," Ocasio-Cortez continued. "We cannot risk the world nor the wellbeing of our nation any longer... Whether by his Cabinet or Congress, the president must be removed from office. We are playing with the brink."
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), one of two Iranian Americans in Congress, said while she was "momentarily relieved" by news of the ceasefire, "this doesn't change anything."
"Trump threatened genocide and war crimes against Iranians this morning," Ansari wrote. "His statements that 'a whole civilization will die' and that he’ll take Iran 'back to the stone ages' confirm that he is mentally unstable, unhinged, and unfit for office or any position of authority."
Ansari called for the removal of both Trump and Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, the administration's leading cheerleader for the war. The Arizona Democrat said earlier this week that she would soon introduce articles of impeachment against Hegseth for "repeated war crimes" in Iran, including the deadly bombing of an elementary school on the first day of the war.
"Thousands of civilians have been tragically killed across the region, American servicemembers have died and suffered unnecessarily, and millions are displaced from Lebanon to the Gulf," Ansari said Tuesday. "Trump and Pete Hegseth have already committed explicit war crimes by bombing schools, hospitals, bridges, and water desalination plants... Whether through impeachment or by invoking the 25th Amendment, it is far past time Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are removed from office."
Instead of leaking to the press that he was opposed to the war, the @VP should convene the cabinet immediately to invoke the 25th amendment and remove Trump from office.
This is the time for leadership, and we will remember it when he runs for president. https://t.co/lAWjWyb7T1
— Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (@RepYassAnsari) April 7, 2026
According to a tally by Axios, at least 85 House Democrats have called for Trump's removal via the 25th Amendment, which gives the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet—or a majority of a body established by Congress—the ability to declare the president unable to perform his duties and remove him from office.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) announced Tuesday that he filed new articles of impeachment against Trump after the president's threat to wipe out the "whole civilization" of Iran.
"He's becoming more unstable by the day. His profane and sacrilegious Easter Sunday and subsequent threats, including ‘a whole civilization will die’ and ‘open the Strait…or you’ll be living in hell,’ not only foreshadow war crimes, but put our security at risk," Larson said in a statement. “People across my district know he is unfit to lead and are calling for impeachment. While Republicans in the majority have so far failed to uphold their constitutional responsibility to initiate impeachment proceedings, that does not absolve others of their duty."
The House and Senate, both controlled by a Republican Party whose ranks are packed with Trump sycophants unwilling to restrain him, are currently on spring recess and aren't scheduled to return to Washington until next week.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called for both chambers to reconvene immediately to "stop this war and remove Donald Trump."
"I’m glad there is a reported ceasefire deal with Iran. But we shouldn’t be in this illegal war in the first place," said Markey. "And Donald Trump can’t simply threaten war crimes with impunity."
Democratic leaders, who have faced backlash for slowwalking a new vote on a resolution aimed at forcing an end to the Iran war, vowed to move ahead with a War Powers vote when lawmakers return from recess.
"We need a permanent end to Donald Trump's reckless war of choice, which is why House Democrats have demanded that Speaker Mike Johnson immediately reconvene the House back into session so we can move a War Powers Resolution that will end this conflict permanently," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in an appearance on CNN late Tuesday.
"Assuming it doesn't happen this week, we'll go back into session next week and we will present a War Powers Resolution as soon as it becomes available to us to do so as a matter of privilege on the House floor," said Jeffries. "All we need are a handful of Republicans to join us."
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Rejecting Temporary Ceasefire Deal, Iran Demands Total End of US-Israeli Hostilities
“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again," said one senior Iranian official.
Apr 06, 2026
As President Donald Trump escalated his threats to commit war crimes in Iran if its government does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian officials on Monday rejected what they called an inadequate ceasefire proposal and insisted on a guarantee that the US and Israel will not only stop their attacks, but also refrain from future aggression.
“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again," Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press, affirming his government's rejection of a 45-day truce proposed by regional mediators led by Pakistan and including Egypt and Turkey.
Trump said Monday that he said he might order attacks on all Iranian power plants and bridges if the country's government does not open the Strait of Hormuz—through which around 20 million daily barrels of oil and a large share of the world's liquefied natural gas passed before the war—by 8:00 pm Eastern time Tuesday.
“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said.
This, after the president on Sunday told Iran to “open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell."
Trump—who recently threatened to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages"—said Sunday that he is unconcerned about committing war crimes in Iran, absurdly telling reporters that “the time the Iranian people are most unhappy... is when those bombs stop.”
Pour stressed that Iran can't trust Trump, who Iranian officials and others have accused of using nuclear negotiations as a cover to impose demands and buy time to prepare for more war.
Just hours before Trump announced his decision to bomb Iran in February, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the mediator of talks between the US and Iranian governments, said that a "peace deal is within our reach."
Iran's government was willing to make unprecedented concessions regarding its nuclear program up until the US and Israel began bombing the country on February 28. Every US administration since that of former President George W. Bush—including Trump's—has concluded that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
The US and Israel also launched attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025 amid ongoing negotiations with Tehran.
A senior Iranian official speaking to Drop Site News Monday on condition of anonymity said that “it is our assessment that the Trump administration, owing to legal constraints within the United States concerning the prosecution of the war as well as the need to maintain control over financial markets, requires a short-term pause in the conflict."
“Our assessment indicates that this proposal has been drafted solely on the basis of the mediators’ perception of the minimum demands of the parties for halting the war,” the official continued.
“Tehran does not consider a temporary ceasefire to be a logical course of action, inasmuch as the window for the United States’ exit from the conflict has already been delineated," they added. "Should the requisite political will exist, the parties are in a position to establish a permanent ceasefire and thereafter concentrate their efforts on diplomacy.”
The standoff comes as Iranian officials said US and Israeli strikes killed at least 34 people, including 6 children, since Monday morning. Recent US-Israeli targets have included Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, a major petrochemical plant in Asaluyeh, and the B1 bridge in Karaj.
Around 2,000 Iranians have been killed over 37 days of intense US-Israeli bombardment, according to Iranian officials and humanitarian groups. This figure includes over 200 children, more than 100 of whom were killed in the February 28 US cruise missile attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab.
At least 13 US service members have been killed and hundreds more wounded by Iranian counterattacks, which have also killed at least 14 Israelis and more than two dozen people in Gulf Arab nations.
More than 1,400 people have also been killed by Israeli attacks on Lebanon, where over 1 million others have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon.
All this is happening amid the backdrop of Israel's ongoing war on Gaza, which has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead or wounded since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. Israel is facing a genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice, while the International Criminal Court is seeking the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
Eight Palestinians were reportedly killed and a number of others wounded on Monday in an Israeli airstrike east of the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.
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