Speaking on the margins of the G7 summit in France, President Donald Trump issued an unusually blunt public rebuke of Israel’s military conduct in Lebanon, declaring that “too many people are being killed” and that it was unnecessary “to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody.” He added that Israel had been fighting Hezbollah “too long” and suggested that if Israel could not do the job “without killing everyone else,” then Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, could step in. The remarks, delivered on Tuesday, mark a sharp escalation in rhetoric between the White House and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Trump has privately described as “crazy” and publicly reminded that “without me, there would be no Israel.”

The criticism lands at a supremely delicate moment. Washington and Tehran are preparing to sign a memorandum of understanding on 19 June in Switzerland, intended to end a war that has raged since late February and drawn in Iranian ballistic missile strikes on Israel. The text of the agreement has not been made public, and contradictory interpretations are already surfacing. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insists that the deal requires a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory, warning that “without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end.” A US official, speaking anonymously, has indicated the deal does not contain such a condition. Iran’s military central command, Khatam al-Anbiya, meanwhile threatened a “harsh response” if Israel’s “child-killing army” continues its aggression, claiming Israel has violated the Lebanon ceasefire 84 times since the deal was announced.

On the ground in southern Lebanon, the gap between diplomacy and reality is widening. Lebanese state media reported that Israeli drone strikes killed four people in the Nabatieh area on Tuesday, and further airstrikes and artillery shelling hit Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Kfar Tebnit, and other villages on Wednesday, even as Israeli ground forces advanced towards the town of Haddatha. Hezbollah responded by firing more than ten rockets at Israeli troops. While violence has declined from its peak, the persistence of strikes and counter-strikes has prevented displaced residents from returning in significant numbers. Israeli officials maintain that operations will continue as long as necessary to neutralise Hezbollah threats, a stance that Netanyahu reiterated in a televised address that Israeli columnists dismissed as a superficial campaign speech lacking straight answers about the deal’s implications.

Viewed from Washington, Trump’s frustration is driven by a desire to secure a foreign policy win ahead of domestic headwinds, where the war’s unpopularity and rising petrol prices have exacted a political toll. The president appears willing to use leverage over Netanyahu to clear obstacles, telling reporters he is “not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah.” In Tel Aviv, analysts describe Netanyahu as having been humiliated and excluded from the US-Iran track, with one Haaretz columnist launching a scathing attack on the prime minister’s credibility. The Jerusalem Post’s editorial board captured a broader Israeli anxiety, demanding to know whether the suffering endured during Iranian missile barrages was worth it, and lamenting a lack of transparency.

The coming days will test whether the diplomatic architecture can withstand the centrifugal forces pulling at it. Iran’s insistence on an Israeli withdrawal as a de facto condition, Israel’s determination to remain in Lebanon, and Trump’s unorthodox suggestion that Damascus could assume the burden of confronting Hezbollah all inject uncertainty into an already fragile process. Should the memorandum be signed while Israeli strikes continue, Tehran may face domestic pressure to make good on its threats, risking a direct Iranian-Israeli confrontation that the agreement was meant to foreclose. For now, the spectacle of an American president publicly dressing down his closest Middle Eastern ally underscores a fundamental realignment of pressures—one in which the pursuit of a grand bargain with Iran is, for the first time in decades, taking precedence over unconditional support for Israel.