\u201cWe give President Trump the benefit of the doubt that he is making the right decisions for America, and that he is also trying to help his allies \u2014 and, of course, the most important ally in the region is Israel,\u201d said 32-year-old Shlomo Schlechter.<\/p>\n
But \u201cwe understand that American and Israeli interests do not always go hand in hand,\u201d the law student said, adding that he still trusted the US president to make the right decision as the deal\u2019s details are hashed out over the next 60 days.<\/p>\n
\t Like other residents AFP spoke to, Schlechter said he did not expect the deal to hold, nor Israel to withdraw from Lebanon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope that President Trump will remain firm, and when he sees that the Iranians are not serious \u2014 as I expect will happen \u2014 he will return and know how to deal with them with a heavy hand, as he knows how to do,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n From Trump Heights, Israeli artillery could be heard pounding its northern neighbor on Friday morning, after four Israeli soldiers were killed the previous night.<\/p>\n By late afternoon, a US official said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed a ceasefire that began at 4 p.m. local time (1300 GMT), brokered by US and Qatari mediators following talks with Israel and Iran.<\/p>\n \u2018Very thankful\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWhen someone does something good for you, you\u2019re not gonna hate them right when they do something you agree a little less with,\u201d Dalia Ben Shabbat, a 38-year-old resident of Trump Heights, told AFP.<\/p>\n \u201cRegarding President Trump himself, we\u2019re very thankful for what he\u2019s done for Israel until now,\u201d the architecture student and mother-of-four said.<\/p>\n Hours before the US-Iran deal was announced earlier this week, Trump excoriated Netanyahu for launching attacks in Lebanon that threatened to derail it.<\/p>\n \t \u201cHe\u2019s a very difficult guy,\u201d Trump said of Netanyahu, \u201cand to be honest with you, he should be very thankful to us for doing this. Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn\u2019t be around for two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, US Vice President JD Vance also issued an extraordinary rebuke to Israeli critics of the Iran deal, warning them not to alienate their \u201conly powerful ally\u201d left in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world superpower,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n But in Trump Heights, emblazoned with Israeli and US flags, residents didn\u2019t take the comments by the US executive to heart.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the person is good, the person is good,\u201d Ben Shabbat said of the US president.<\/p>\n \u2018Vichy deal\u2019<\/p>\n Trump Heights, which sits in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, is an homage to Donald Trump who in 2019 recognized Israel\u2019s sovereignty over the strategic plateau, making the United States the first, and so far only, country to do so.<\/p>\n While the community didn\u2019t seem to have fully abandoned the US president, some residents voiced strong disappointment about his deal with Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cThis deal is the equivalent of Vichy France making a deal with Nazi Germany,\u201d one middle-aged man in a wheelchair who declined to be named said, referring to France\u2019s World War II government which collaborated with the Nazis to send Jews to concentration camps.<\/p>\n \t A teenager who said he had been out of school for the last two months because of the war with Iran said he felt the deal didn\u2019t take into account Israelis living near Lebanon.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there is a ceasefire with Iran, people in central and south Israel will stop receiving Iranian missiles, but here in the north we will still have Hezbollah rockets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident \u2013 ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded \u2013 I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.<\/p>\n There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.<\/p>\n As a Times of Israel reporter, I\u2019m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit\u2019s. But my colleagues and I can’t do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.<\/p>\n \u2014 Stav Levaton, military reporter<\/p>\n \t\t\t
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\n\t\tA woman and child walk in Ramat Trump in the Golan Heights on June 19, 2026 (Jalaa MAREY \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AFP__20260619__B7ME92F__v1__HighRes__IsraelLebanonConflictGolanSettlers-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPeople sit at a coffeshop at Ramat Trump in the Golan Heights on June 19, 2026 (Jalaa MAREY \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AFP__20241218__36QK7Z2__v1__HighRes__IsraelUsSyriaGolanConflictSettlementsTrumpHeigh-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tFile: Yedidya Ostroff, a 31-year-old recent resident of Ramat Trump (Trump Heights), performs maintenance work at his property on December 17, 2024 (Jalaa MAREY \/ AFP)<\/p>\n
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