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War & Peace
Israel Keeps Killing Lebanese Civilians Despite Trump's De-Escalation Claim
"The more Netanyahu prevents the war with Iran from ending, the more obvious it becomes that he convinced Trump to start it."
Jun 02, 2026
The death toll from Israel's assault on Lebanon continued to rise on Tuesday despite President Donald Trump's claims of de-escalation following Monday phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an intermediary for Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said Tuesday that "the cumulative toll of the aggression from March 2 to June 2 has reached 3,468 dead and 10,577 injured," even amid a ceasefire agreed to in April. The deal stemmed from Trump and Netanyahu's illegal war on Iran, and Israel initially claimed it did not include Lebanon.
After Iran on Monday reportedly halted talks with the US over Israel's attacks on Lebanon, Trump said on his Truth Social platform that due to his phone calls, Israeli troops "have already been turned back" from Beirut, and Hezbollah "agreed that all shooting will stop—That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel."
However, Netanyahu said later Monday that "I spoke this evening with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not stop attacking our cities and civilians, Israel will strike terrorist targets in Beirut. This position remains unchanged."
According to Axios reporting contested by a senior Israeli official, one US source summarized Trump's remarks to Netanyahu as follows: "You're fucking crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this."
Another source said that Trump was "pissed" and at one point yelled at the prime minister, "What the fuck are you doing?"
While "the story has understandably been met with considerable skepticism," wrote Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, there are "a few important counterexamples—particularly from Trump's second term—that suggest the Axios story is not entirely implausible."
"What is also plausible, however, is that Trump will once again fail to sustain the pressure and, by that, allow for Netanyahu's potential retreat to prove temporary," Parsi predicted.
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie (Ky.), a libertarian who recently lost his reelection primary to a Trump-backed challenger, responded to the reporting on social media: "It's all talk. Just withhold foreign aid to Israel for a month, and they'll stop bombing their neighbors—instant peace, the Strait of Hormuz can be opened, and gas drops $2 a gallon. Israel has been, and continues to be, the biggest welfare recipient from American taxpayers."
Massie also said that "the more Netanyahu prevents the war with Iran from ending, the more obvious it becomes that he convinced Trump to start it."
Progressive Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (Minn.) similarly said late Monday: "The lesson Israel has learned, time and again, is that it can commit genocide and other atrocities with near-total impunity. Now it's exporting the Gaza playbook to Lebanon. Israel's war in Lebanon is killing thousands and displacing over a million. NO MORE US AID TO ISRAEL."
Citing Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) on Tuesday, Al Jazeera cataloged Israel's killings since Trump's de-escalation claims:
Two Syrians were killed in an Israeli attack on a plant nursery where they were working in the town of Jebchit in the Nabatieh governorate, NNA said on Tuesday.
Israeli drone strikes hit a motorcycle on Martyr Sabra Street in Toul and a car in the Dhi’at al-Arab neighborhood of Ansar, killing two people, NNA said.
The third strike hit a car near the village of Harouf, killing one person.
Separately, an Israeli drone strike hit a car on the road linking the southern town of Marjayoun with the city of Nabatieh, killing James Karam, a dentist from the nearby Christian municipality of Qlayaa, along with his daughter and son, NNA reported.
Those deaths followed Israel's Monday airstrike in the southern village of Marwaniyeh, which killed six members of the Hassan Abdullah family, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense. Palestine Chronicle reported that "rescue teams worked throughout the night and into Tuesday morning to recover victims trapped beneath the rubble of the destroyed building. Three additional people were pulled from the debris during the operation."
Also on Monday, Israel attacked the Jabal Amel Hospital in Tyre, killing at least four people and injuring dozens more.
Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Lebanon, said Tuesday that the hospital is one of the few operating in the country's south, and the attack "caused significant damage... to the emergency department and intensive care unit."
"Six hospitals have not yet resumed maternity delivery services and are currently providing only emergency room care," he noted. "For pregnant women and newborns, delays in care can mean the difference between life and death."
WHO has verified nearly 200 attacks on healthcare facilities and workers in Lebanon over the past three months. Calling for such attacks "to stop" and "active protection for healthcare," Abubakar stressed that "these attacks kill and maim, they also deprive people of the health services they need."
Israel hit Jabal Amel Hospital after a strike near Hiram Hospital the previous day, according to Doctors Without Borders, which supports both facilities. Omar Ebeid, the organization's project coordinator in southern Lebanon, said Tuesday that "these repeated attacks reflect a grave failure to protect the medical mission and underscore the urgent need to safeguard civilians, medical staff, health facilities, and continuous access to lifesaving care."
Faced with a rising death toll and Israeli forces' destruction of civilian infrastructure, The Associated Press reported, "another round of talks between Israel and Lebanon began Tuesday in Washington, where Lebanese negotiators are set to seek a full ceasefire that will prevent future attacks."
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Khanna Vows Amendment to Kill 'Insidious' Effort to Deepen Military Ties Between US, Israel
One analyst noted that Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act would "provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the US has with any other country in the world."
Jun 01, 2026
US Rep. Ro Khanna on Sunday said he will introduce an amendment to kill a provision tucked inside the sprawling 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would deepen ties between the American and Israeli militaries.
Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote on social media that he would work to ensure the provision, Section 224 of the NDAA, is removed from the bill in the House Armed Services Committee, which is set to mark up the $1.15 trillion legislation on Thursday. The provision, according to legislative text unveiled last week, would "require the secretary of defense to designate an executive agent responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, including bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation."
Khanna's pledge to spearhead committee efforts to remove the provision came after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)—who has partnered with the California Democrat in pushing for the full release of the Epstein files—condemned Section 224 on social media and vowed to "offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor" if it survives the House Armed Services Committee.
"We are a sovereign country," Massie wrote.
And I will be offering an amendment in the committee itself to strip section 224 out, @RepThomasMassie.
Trump can't kill the Massie/Khanna partnership no matter how much he posts on Truth Social. https://t.co/4Dz4ks84XH
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 31, 2026
Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, noted last week that while the US and Israel "already work together heavily on missile defense," Section 224 "would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more."
"It also proposes 'network integration' and 'data fusion.' In other words, the US military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data. If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the US has with any other country in the world," Freeman wrote. "The result could well be a US political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the US into military conflicts in the Middle East."
The NDAA provision has drawn outrage from anti-war groups that are pushing American lawmakers to cut off military assistance to Israel over its genocidal assault on Gaza, which has been carried out with the help of US weaponry. Last month, the Trump administration fast-tracked the approval of a transfer of American rockets to the Israeli military, which receives around $4 billion per year in aid from the US.
"While Americans oppose more military aid to Israel, Congress is inserting something even deeper and more insidious into the US military budget (NDAA): US integration with the Israeli military!" Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, said last week. "Tell Congress: Reject Section 224 of the NDAA. No military integration. No weapons and AI partnerships."
Section 224 is crammed into legislation that, if passed, would authorize more than $1 trillion in military spending for the coming fiscal year—part of President Donald Trump's push for an unprecedented $1.5 trillion military budget for 2027.
Experts at the Center for American Progress (CAP) noted in a Monday analysis that "while the recently released chairman’s mark of the NDAA does moderate some aspects of the budget—such as introducing guardrails on the 'Trump-class' battleship program—it does not go nearly far enough."
"Congress should refuse to authorize the president’s unjustifiable increase request," CAP argued. "Instead, lawmakers should insist on a disciplined defense budget that makes sense, ensuring that funds are spent on programs critical for the well-being of American servicemembers and modern defense needs—not vanity projects with limited military utility."
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Amid Israeli Sabotage of Iran Talks, Trump Says Troops Turned Back From Beirut After Netanyahu Call
"Israel is doing everything it can to derail diplomacy by turning southern Lebanon into another Gaza," said one foreign policy expert.
Jun 01, 2026
Shortly after reporting emerged Monday that Iran was suspending talks with the United States over Israel's ramped up assault on Lebanon, President Donald Trump claimed that Israeli forces headed toward Beirut have "turned back" and that Hezbollah has agreed that "all shooting will stop" following separate phone calls with representatives from the two warring sides.
Since Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began bombing Iran on February 28, Iranian officials and global experts have repeatedly accused the Israeli government of trying to sabotage any path to peace.
Iran's Tasnim News Agency reported Monday that "given the continuation of the Israeli regime's attacks in Lebanon, and considering that Lebanon had been one of the preconditions for a ceasefire—which has now been violated on all fronts, including Lebanon—the Iranian negotiating team is suspending 'talks and exchanges of texts through mediators.'"
According to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated news agency, the IRGC said in a statement that Iran considers "the crossing of red lines in Lebanon and Gaza to mean direct war and the imposition of costs on its national security and the Islamic Resistance," and in response, it will "undertake defensive operations through unconventional measures, opening new fronts and maintaining the Strait of Hormuz equation."
Iran has responded to the US-Israeli assault by restricting traffic through the waterway, a key trade route, particularly for fossil fuels and fertilizer. As oil prices around the world have soared, Trump has imposed a naval blockade that he has maintained despite the April ceasefire agreement—which Israel initially claimed did not include Lebanon.
In a brief phone call on Monday, Trump told NBC News that he had not been informed of Iran's reported decision to suspend negotiations over Israel's escalation in Lebanon, but "I think it's fine if they're done talking."
"It's an appropriate thing to say, because they're better negotiators than they are fighters... But they haven't informed us of that," he continued. "It doesn't mean we're going to go and start dropping bombs all over there."
That comment notably came after the Trump administration launched new strikes against Iran over the weekend, and the Iranians attacked US military installations in the Middle East.
"We'll keep the blockade," Trump told NBC. "If they don't want to talk, that's OK with me. I think it's fine. I don't particularly want to talk either. We talk too much."
However, shortly after that, Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he "had a very productive call" with Netanyahu, "and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back."
"Likewise, through highly placed Representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop—That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel," Trump continued. Less than 15 minutes later, he added that "talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran."
While Iran's leadership had not publicly confirmed that talks were halted on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on social media that "the ceasefire between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation."
Iran's chief negotiator, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, similarly said: "The naval blockade and escalation of war crimes in Lebanon by the genocidal Zionist regime are clear evidence of US noncompliance with the ceasefire. Every choice has a price, and the bill comes due. It will all fall into place."
Responding to Israel "dramatically escalating its military campaign" in southern Lebanon and Tasnim's reporting on negotiations, Sina Toossi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC, concluded that "the Iranian message is increasingly clear: no Lebanon ceasefire, no broader framework, and potentially no talks at all."
"The talks are in a vicious cycle: progress, escalation, backtracking," he noted. "Many in Iran suspect Trump is trying to bring down the 'floor' for oil prices ahead of more war. And Israel is doing everything it can to derail diplomacy by turning southern Lebanon into another Gaza."
The "Gaza playbook" Israel is now using in Lebanon, Toossi said, features "scorched-earth tactics, mass displacement, and the ethnic cleansing" of its neighboring nation.
Other experts also pointed to Gaza, where Israel is widely accused of pursuing a genocide against Palestinians in the besieged exclave. Calling out Reuters reporting on Israel's escalation in Lebanon, Arab Center Washington DC fellow Assal Rad said that "like 'targeting Hamas' in Gaza, 'Hezbollah-controlled' is used to justify Israel flattening entire neighborhoods in Lebanon. This isn't journalism, it's stenography."
"This is what Israel's total destruction of southern Lebanon looks like, deliberately destroying people’s homes so they have nothing to return to," she added, sharing satellite images of the destruction.
Mohamad Safa, who earlier this year resigned as a representative for the nongovernmental organization Patriotic Vision Association at the United Nations, on Monday accused Israel of "committing another genocide in real time in Lebanon with complete impunity."
Former US Department of Defense adviser Jasmine El-Gamal, who now leads the consulting firm Averos Strategies, said early Monday: "Early in the Iran war, I warned that US and Israeli interests would inevitably diverge and that President Trump would have to make a choice: to actually put America first, or to continue to allow Netanyahu to threaten our interests. Lebanon is the epitome of this choice."
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Schumer Among Top Dems Who Marched at NYC Israel Parade With Accused ‘War Criminal’ Smotrich
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for the "annihilation" of Gaza and has led forced displacement efforts in the West Bank.
Jun 01, 2026
Numerous headlines over the weekend focused on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's decision not to attend the city's Israel Day Parade on Sunday, with Israeli officials condemning his absence and outlets emphasizing that he was breaking "with a decades-long political custom because of his support of Palestinian rights."
But with the Israeli government's approval rating plummeting among the US public, including Jewish Americans, since Israel began its US-backed assault on Gaza more than two-and-a-half years ago, progressives were asking not why Mamdani skipped the parade—but why top Democratic officials such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) chose to take part in it, especially considering the involvement of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The International Criminal Court requested a warrant for Smotrich's arrest last month over his efforts to forcibly expel thousands of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank, a violation of international law. He has played a key role in efforts to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have ramped up since October 2023, when Israel began attacking Gaza's entire population of over 2 million Palestinians in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. He also publicly called for the "annihilation" of Gaza in 2024.
The New York Times reported that Smotrich was not part of Israel's official delegation that was sent to take part in the annual parade, whose theme this year was "Proud Americans, Proud Zionists," but he marched nonetheless.
The Israeli government sent about 10 members of the Israeli Knesset to take part in the event, including two members of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit Party. Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who said last year that Israel was “rushing toward Gaza being wiped out," was also part of the delegation.
As Smotrich was joining establishment Democratic figures from New York state in the parade—including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, US Rep. Dan Goldman, Attorney General Letitia James, and New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin—Ben-Gvir on Sunday was publicly calling for the Israel Defense Forces to "flatten" Beirut's suburbs in the IDF's incursion into Lebanon—"a direct incitement to mass civilian destruction," according to Middle East Eye.
"Why is it controversial for Zohran to skip a parade because of his principles but not for Democratic politicians to march with a fascist bigot like Smotrich?" asked Ben Rhodes, a former national security official under the Obama administration.
At the parade, Schumer spoke about his view that Jewish Americans' "security and our safety is never safe as long as we lack a place of refuge, a homeland," but Ali Abunimah, director of Electronic Intifada, wondered how the Senate leader's involvement in a parade with officials who have openly called for ethnic cleansing would make hundreds of thousands of Muslim New Yorkers, including thousands of Palestinian Americans, feel about their own safety.
"How can all New Yorkers feel safe, especially Muslims and Palestinians, when the New York City police commissioner marches with genocidal criminals like Smotrich for the same supremacist cause?" said Abunimah, suggesting Commissioner Jessica Tisch should be removed for her involvement in the parade. "Would Mayor Zohran Mamdani keep a police chief who marched with [the Ku Klux Klan]?"
The city's Democratic Socialists of America chapter called for Smotrich to "be arrested to face justice for his horrific crimes against Palestinians and humanity," and said that "every politician who marched with him aligned themselves with Israel’s crimes."
Along with the participation of Smotrich and Eliyahu, Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed noted that at the parade, the flag of the IDF's Golani Battalion, which was behind the killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics in Rafah last year, was displayed at the event.
Beth Miller, the political director for Jewish Voice for Peace, took issue with a statement by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that condemned Mamdani for not taking part in the parade, calling it "the city's largest and most visible Jewish celebration."
"It's antisemitic to conflate Jews and Israel. Which is exactly what the ADL is doing by calling the 'Israel Day Parade' a 'Jewish celebration,'" said Miller. "As a Jewish person who lives here, I'm pretty fucking glad we finally have a mayor who isn't at a parade celebrating atrocity crimes."
Ryan Grim of Drop Site News pointed out that while New York City was welcoming the Israeli delegation, including officials from the country's extreme right, commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur were barred from entering the United Kingdom. Both have vehemently criticized Israel and were flagged as potentially not being "conducive to the public good.”
Journalist Krystal Ball of the online show "Breaking Points" said sardonically that the two concurrent events displayed "Western values."
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