Israel Kills Eight in Strike on Lebanon; US Rescues Helicopter Crew From Hormuz

Israel struck the historic port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, in an escalation that adds strain to efforts to broker a peace deal to end the wider Middle East war.

On Monday, Israel and Iran said they would halt attacks on each other after an appeal by U.S. President Donald Trump to end their first direct exchanges of fire since April, but Tehran warned it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to attack its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Tuesday’s raids were the deadliest on Tyre since fighting erupted in Lebanon in early March, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in support of Tehran after Israel and the United States began their war against Iran.

Israel had issued an evacuation order for the city earlier on Tuesday. Residents fled and civil defense teams transported elderly residents into temporary shelters, state media reported. The eight victims were killed in a single strike on the city’s eastern edge, Lebanon‘s health ministry said.

A video verified by Reuters showed debris strewn across a road at the site of the attack.

Israel’s Lebanon Campaign Complicates Trump’s Peace Quest

Israel‘s refusal to end its campaign in Lebanon, as Iran demands, has hindered Trump’s efforts to extend a tenuous ceasefire in the wider U.S.-Israeli war with Iran into a durable settlement.

As a truce announced on April 8 largely holds in the war in the Gulf, Trump said two U.S. helicopter crew members were “fine” following their rescue by a U.S. Navy drone after their Apache gunship went down near the Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz.

It was not clear whether the Apache had been shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure, or encountered another problem. Asked if he knew what had brought it down off Oman, Trump said a report would be issued later on Tuesday.

A U.S. Navy surface drone found and rescued the two crew, the U.S. military told Reuters. U.S. Central Command said the AH-64 Apache went down at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday (2300 GMT on Monday).

“The pilots are fine,” Trump said, speaking on the runway at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport before returning to Washington, D.C. “Nobody injured.”

Centcom was more circumspect, saying the pair had been picked up within about two hours and were in stable condition.

Iranian Air Defense Personnel to Be Buried

In Tehran, two Iranian air defense personnel were due to be buried on Tuesday afternoon after being killed in Israeli strikes the day before, Iran’s military said. No deaths were reported in Israel after the Iranian strikes.

Oil prices, which had risen on the exchange of fire between Israel and Iran, fell on Tuesday after the attacks were paused. [O/R]

Trump told reporters he might have “an idea” for an Iran deal within a few days, without elaborating. The Republican president, struggling with record low approval ratings as November’s midterm elections approach, has often hinted at an imminent deal with Tehran, but none has yet materialized.

U.S. and Israeli officials said Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken on Monday.

In an interview with Axios, Trump said he had warned the Israeli leader not to return to war with Iran: “I said, ‘Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.'”

However, Israel‘s military chief Eyal Zamir said on Tuesday that the attack Israel carried out against Iran the previous day was “in preparation for a much more significant and heavy blow”.

“We are prepared to return and deliver another severe and deep strike against Iran,” he said during a visit to training exercises in northern Israel.

Tehran has long said any peace deal with the U.S. depends in part on an end to fighting in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of Hezbollah fighters who had fired across the border.

In northern Israel on Tuesday, Israeli troops operating in the Ramim Ridge area close to Lebanon‘s border killed one person in an incident in which they returned fire, the military said.

Israel has never halted its Lebanon campaign, which has killed thousands of people, saying the conflict should be treated separately from any U.S.-Iranian ceasefire. Hezbollah has also continued its attacks.

At the same time, Tehran has continued to block most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas. Washington has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Tuesday that ship traffic through Hormuz is rising “very meaningfully”, but added it would take many months to get back to normal flows of energy once the war is over.

Trump has said any peace deal must ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Iran’s demands include the lifting of international sanctions, the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and recognition of its control of the strait.

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(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Lincoln Feast, Ros Russell, Kevin Liffey, William Maclean, Editing by)

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