Frantic maneuvering over the fate of the southern suburbs

The suspense of the day on Monday, June 1st, centered this time on the fate of the southern suburbs, which had experienced the past twenty-four hours under the threat of imminent Israeli bombardments. Late in the evening, President Donald Trump announced the conclusion of an agreement providing for a halt to Hezbollah fire against Israel in exchange for a suspension of Israeli bombing of the southern suburbs, which was about to be carried out.

The White House chief made this announcement on his social network Truth Social, indicating that he had held a "very productive" conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an allusion to the raid that appeared imminent against the southern suburbs, he indicated that "no troops will go to Beirut, and the forces that were on their way have turned back."

President Trump further indicated that "through high-ranking representatives, I had a telephone conversation with Hezbollah, and they have agreed to cease fire, in the sense that Israel will not attack them and they will not attack Israel." Late in the evening, an authorized American source clarified that contacts with Lebanon regarding ceasefires took place with President Joseph Aoun.

It was Monday morning that tensions rose dramatically when the Israeli Prime Minister and his Defense Minister Israel Katz announced in a joint statement that they had ordered the military to bomb the southern suburbs, specifically the drone and ammunition depots, drone manufacturing centers, and Hezbollah command posts. Shortly after this statement was released, a massive exodus of residents from the southern suburbs was recorded, causing traffic congestion at the exit from the region. To prevent tensions from escalating into security incidents, the military set up fixed checkpoints to seal the entrances to Ain el-Remmaneh.

While Israeli aviation conducted raids throughout the day against Hezbollah positions in several villages in the south—the deadliest raid completely devastated an entire neighborhood in Tyre—the government undertook urgent contacts to prevent the Jewish state from executing its threats against the southern suburbs. The head of the legislature and leader of the Amal movement, Nabih Berry, notably declared that Hezbollah had agreed to cease its fire against Israel.

Later in the day, the Iranian regime renewed its maneuver aimed at attempting to control the Lebanese chessboard. It thus stressed that any attack on the southern suburbs would directly impact northern Israel, inviting residents of that region to evacuate in case of strikes against the Beirut suburbs. In the afternoon, Tehran announced it was suspending (indirect) negotiations and message exchanges with the United States due to Israeli threats. To which President Trump responded in the evening: "I don't care if negotiations with Iran are interrupted. I can wait a long time; it's them who are losing."

This aggressive stance adopted by Iran to prevent bombardments against the southern suburbs at all costs led some analysts to question the reasons for such an attitude and to wonder what is so important hidden in these suburbs that would explain the Iranian regime's position on this matter.

In any case, information available late in the evening made it possible to clarify the situation as follows:

The ceasefire announced by President Trump does not necessarily concern South Lebanon, where raids continued intensively late into the night against several villages.

The agreement reached Monday implicitly stipulates an equation whereby the bombing of the southern suburbs will be carried out if Hezbollah resumes its attacks against Israel (Mr. Netanyahu indicated in the evening that he had emphasized this point during his telephone conversation with President Trump, while clarifying at the same time that the army will continue its operations in the South).

Late Monday night, the pan-Arab channel al-Hadath reported that Hezbollah launched rockets against northern Israel, particularly in the direction of Metula where alarm sirens were activated.

According to some sources, the head of the White House intervened to suspend the bombardment of the southern suburbs so as not to compromise the new round of direct talks between Lebanon and Israel, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday at the State Department in Washington.

It should be noted at the regional level that the American military command indicated Monday morning that US aviation bombed Iranian positions on Saturday and Sunday, notably air defenses, radars, and drone and missile launch centers.

At the same time, the US military intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles over the weekend that had been launched by the Revolutionary Guards toward a US military base in Kuwait. Late Monday night, the Revolutionary Guards stated that they had launched a missile against "a vessel belonging to the American Zionist enemy".