Israel will not withdraw from territory it occupied in Lebanon and if Iran attacks Israel due to events in Lebanon, Israel will retaliate, Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Monday. Meanwhile, Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, denounced the deal between the United States and Iran to end the Middle East war, including in Lebanon, insisting his country was not bound by it. "Trump's agreement does not bind us... we are not party to this agreement. It does not safeguard our security," Ben-Gvir said on his Telegram channel, in what was the first reaction from an Israeli official to the deal. "We must not settle for anything less than the dismantling of Hezbollah. We must not withdraw from a single inch of territory that our soldiers have captured and cleared of terrorist infrastructure," he said. US and Iranian officials said they had reached an agreement to end their war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a preliminary pact that sent oil prices falling but leaves the fate of Tehran's nuclear program to further negotiations. While still a framework, the deal marked the biggest breakthrough towards resolving the conflict that has killed thousands and upended energy markets since it began with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February. "The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete," US President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at around 5:30 p.m. in Washington (2130 GMT) on Sunday. His post came shortly after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has served as a mediator, announced a deal had been struck early on Monday local time. The memorandum of understanding is scheduled to be officially signed on Friday in Switzerland. The precise terms were not immediately known. Sharif said in a post on X that the pact called for "the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon." Lebanon has been a sticking point in negotiations, with Israel and Hezbollah ignoring calls from Trump and others to stop their attacks on each other in recent weeks.
