President Donald Trump, in remarks reported Tuesday, criticized Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, arguing that entire apartment buildings should not be targeted to eliminate individual Hezbollah operatives. "You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you are looking for somebody. There are a lot of people in those houses, and they are not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you," Trump said. The comments add to Trump's ongoing calls for a more surgical Israeli approach to Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday again criticized the manner of Israeli strikes in Lebanon, arguing that the IDF should not destroy entire apartment buildings to target individual Hezbollah operatives. "You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you are looking for somebody," Trump said. "There are a lot of people in those houses, and they are not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you." The remarks, reported Tuesday afternoon, add a new, specific complaint to a thread of increasingly pointed criticism Trump has leveled over the past 48 hours.
Trump's latest comments come after a series of statements on Sunday and Monday that escalated in tone. At 17:48 Jerusalem on Sunday, The Zioneer reported that Trump called the Beirut strike a "mistake" and said Israel should not be allowed to attack anywhere. By the same time Sunday, he had also demanded an end to "further Israeli attacks anywhere in Lebanon" and called for a cessation of attacks by both sides. On Monday evening, according to a report cited by The Zioneer on Monday at 19:16 Jerusalem, Trump said he hoped the situation could be resolved and acknowledged dialogue with Hezbollah was needed. A Tuesday bulletin at 13:21 Jerusalem, citing analyst Yair Goldblatt, suggested Trump now effectively accepts that Israeli fighting will continue. Tuesday's remark — focused on the scale of strikes against individual operatives — reinforces the president's long-standing preference for a more surgical approach, which he first endorsed in a June 7 NBC interview, as The Zioneer reported on June 7 at 19:50 Jerusalem.
Trump's criticism is set against the backdrop of a diplomatic push for a U.S.-Iran deal, which he has repeatedly warned the Israeli operation risks disrupting. As The Zioneer reported Sunday, Trump described the Hezbollah attack that triggered the Israeli response as "small and insignificant" and claimed it caused no casualties. The thread has evolved from a single reported rebuke on Sunday morning into a sustained public pressure campaign, with Trump also suggesting that Syrian forces under Ahmad al-Sharaa could handle Hezbollah — a notion Israel strongly opposes, as The Zioneer noted in a Tuesday 13:21 bulletin.
The specific source of Tuesday's remark — whether an interview, a statement, or a social media post — was not specified in the reports received by the desk. The Zioneer did not independently confirm the precise forum in which Trump made the comment.
8 developments
- ConfirmedTrump Slams Israel's Lebanon Campaign as 'Mini-War,' Suggests Syria Should Handle Hezbollah
- DevelopingTrump, in NBC Interview, Endorses 'More Surgical' Strikes on Hezbollah and Praises Syrian Leadership
- StrongTrump: If Israel can't avoid killing everyone in Lebanon, let Syria do the job
- StrongTrump says he hopes the Lebanon situation can be resolved, acknowledges Hezbollah
Source and signal
- Internal intake