Israel-Lebanon ceasefire announced by Trump – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:09What didn't happen was a direct conversation between Netanyahu and Awun. It will be followed supposedly by a meeting in Washington, which would be historic if it happens. Israeli Defense Forces brought some of the tactics they used in Gaza and brought it to southern Lebanon, in a sort of scorched earth, open fire zone. Israel and Lebanon have agreed a 10-day ceasefire. So how did it happen and what does it mean for the rest of the war? From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hough. Julian Borgia is our senior international correspondent. Thank you for coming back up to the studio.

0:50We did record a conversation a few hours ago when things were very different. But literally in the last few minutes, Donald Trump, the US president, has posted on Truth Social that a ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and Lebanon, a 10 day ceasefire. Thank you for coming back up and tell us what we know at this very early stage. Well, it's supposed to begin at midnight local time in Lebanon. It will be followed supposedly next week, next Tuesday, by a meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, in Washington, which would be historic if it happens. And then they're going to work on the nitty gritty, the details of how this could be turned into something more long lasting.

1:39Yes, at the moment, a 10 day ceasefire. But as you say, these unprecedented talks that seem to be likely to be happening in Washington, following these landmark talks that happened on Tuesday, which was the first time that Israel and Lebanon spoken directly in decades. There was some uncertainty and we spoke earlier today about the fact that there was a lack of clarity about whether these talks were happening at all. Israel said they were, Trump said they were, but Beirut said they weren't. So what do we know about the choreography at this point? Well, what didn't happen was a direct conversation between Netanyahu and Aoun.

2:14This is something that Trump announced. He obviously hadn't checked it with Beirut because Aoun was not on board with that while they were still fighting. To speak to an Israeli leader for the first time in more than three decades while you're still being bombed was not politically acceptable to him. So instead they had indirect talks through Trump and came to this ceasefire deal, apparently, in those talks. And have we heard from those two leaders directly, from Aoun and from Netanyahu? It's early days, but so far we have not. So we don't have absolute confirmation. We have heard from Hezbollah, which is an important part of this because the Lebanese president can't really talk on behalf of Hezbollah because he doesn't control that militia.

3:04And Hezbollah MP has said, yes, we've been informed and this is all due to the diplomacy of Iran, which sounds like they are on board. They're going to sell it as an Iranian achievement because Iran was insisting that a ceasefire be done, be agreed in Lebanon before they could move on with US-Iranian talks. Yeah, it's been a key sticking point, isn't it? And we should remind people that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy. And it was a sort of real sticking point about whether Lebanon was part of the ceasefire that was agreed last week. Before we come on to that, I do just want to talk about the violence that we've seen in Lebanon in the last 24 hours or so.

3:44At least three medics were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, which is just appalling. We have now got a ceasefire over the line, it seems at this point. But the scale of the bloodshed, the scale of the disruption and devastation to people's lives in Lebanon has been astonishing and devastating. people we heard from Will Christou, our reporter in Beirut, that thousands of people are living with houses destroyed on the street. So it's a happy moment, but we shouldn't have been here in the first place. Absolutely. From what we can see, the Israeli Defence Forces brought some of the tactics they used in Gaza and brought it to southern Lebanon, a sort of scorched earth, open fire zone in their effort to try and create a buffer zone on the northern Israeli border up to the Latani River.

4:38And they do seem to have treated that as an open fire zone. And that led to large scale civilian casualties. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's been talk of Lebanon, southern Lebanon being the sort of Gaza playbook. But again, mercifully, this 10-day ceasefire agreed that does seem to have real implications for the peace process between US, Israel and Iran moving forward. This morning we heard from Pete Hegseth, the US Defence Secretary, who was issuing kind of this bombastic rhetoric towards Iran, telling it to choose wisely and saying that the US was ready to restart military activity if Iran didn't meet its terms.

5:24Can we now kind of see those comments slightly differently given what's happened this afternoon? I mean, I think this is the US stance towards Iran maximum threats. I think it's advancing on sort of two prongs. One is to try and get this deal done in Lebanon. The other is to try and scare Iran into making concessions at the negotiation table. And one of the things he did is repeated an earlier threat from Trump to hit the energy industry, which would in almost every case be a war crime because you are targeting the civilian infrastructure. Hegseth today repeated that threat. Yeah, he sure did.

6:02And we should say that he's under great scrutiny at the moment, isn't he? He's facing six articles of impeachment from Democrats in Congress over the actions that he has taken in Iran and elsewhere. Meanwhile, what are the sticking points as we enter what looks likely to be another round of serious negotiations? Because the sticking point is about nuclear enrichment, isn't it? And there was, we did have obviously the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, which Trump pulled out of. There were the terms of a deal agreed in Geneva prior to this conflict. But where do we go from here? What looks likely to be thrashed out in the coming days?

6:40Yeah, the sticking points were Lebanon, what was happening in Lebanon, and then the Strait of Hormuz. You can see a possible solution to that if the central long-standing issue of a compromise over Iran's nuclear program can be arrived at. And that does seem to be at the crux of it, seems to have been at the crux of negotiations that happened last weekend in Islamabad. And as far as we can tell, it's really about how the key issue that things seem to be stuck on is how long Iran would go without enriching uranium, which from their point of view is an absolute right. But they say they're prepared to have a moratorium.

7:23How long that moratorium will be? The U.S., as we understand it, in Islamabad, we're talking about 20 years. Iran was talking about single figures, less than 10. It seems possible that a deal can be done if there is a sort of willingness to compromise. But I think that at the end of the day will be the key issue. Yeah. Well, Julian, thank you so much for coming up again at this very historic and important moment. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. A pleasure. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Julian Borger, The Guardian's senior international correspondent, you can keep up with his reporting and rolling coverage of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire over at theguardian.com.

8:05And I really recommend today's episode of Politics Weekly. Raphael Baer is joined by Gabby Hinsliff to discuss the row over the UK's defence spending and the coming economic crunch from the Iran war. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus. Today in Focus will be back with you as usual tomorrow morning. The latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch. This is The Guardian.