{"id":503925,"date":"2026-06-21T12:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T12:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/503925\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T12:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T12:17:10","slug":"israelis-worry-trump-brokered-ceasefire-in-lebanon-will-only-harm-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/503925\/","title":{"rendered":"Israelis worry Trump-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon will only harm them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor David Azoulay\u2019s office in Metula, Israel\u2019s northernmost town, features a portrait of US President Donald Trump<\/a> and an American flag. It\u2019s not an act of praise, but ironic protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past four months, Israel\u2019s policy has been driven entirely by Trump,\u201d said Azoulay, from his office on the Lebanese border, which has become the central sticking point in US-Iranian negotiations to end the war. \u201cPrime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu is trapped in a bear hug that is slowly suffocating us Israelis. Case in point: the memorandum of understanding with Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially true in northern Israel, which is at the heart of the fight between Israel and Hezbollah that even on Friday derailed the first round of peace talks between the US and Iran in Switzerland<\/a>. It\u2019s also become a source of tension in Netanyahu\u2019s relationship with Trump, who has spent the week publicly slamming the Israeli premier and what he called Israel\u2019s \u201cvicious\u201d approach to Lebanon.<\/p>\n

The Galilee Panhandle, a strategic finger of land wedged between the Lebanese and Syrian borders, used to house 50,000 Israeli Jews before three years of Hezbollah rocket attacks left its communities hollowed out. While not entirely deserted, many residents have yet to return, and the streets sit empty amid widespread business closures.<\/p>\n

In Metula, which was evacuated in October 2023 on fear that Hezbollah would attempt a deadly cross-border infiltration similar to the Hamas assault from Gaza, only two-thirds of the residents have returned. Those who did harbor little faith that real change is feasible.<\/p>\n

\"IsraeliIsraeli security forces and civilians at the scene where a missile fired from Lebanon toward Israel overnight caused damage in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, May 30, 2026. (credit: MICHAEL GILADI\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere won’t be a ceasefire; it will just keep going like this, with intermittent rocket fire trickling down on us,\u201d said Kobi Sarmili, a 63-year-old chicken farmer from Margaliot, a town near the border. \u201cIf they pull the troops out, then what? It will be a living hell. Trump is the one calling the shots for us, no one else. He is running our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

War with Hezbollah ‘separate’ from Iran war<\/p>\n

Miry Menashe, a 41-year-old coffee shop owner who moved to Metula four years ago, reflected the general unease with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which Trump signed on Wednesday and sets off a 60-day window for peace talks. While the document calls for an immediate ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon, residents can still see and hear fighting across the border.<\/p>\n

She echoed the Israeli government line that the Israeli war against Hezbollah is separate from the Iran war.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the US wants to be part of the solution rather than enforcing a ceasefire on us, it must compel Lebanon to deploy its army to southern Lebanon. Train them, arm them, and give them the resources they need,\u201d said Menashe. \u201cMr. Trump, if you want to be a friend, be a friend; if you want to be a foe, be a foe. Don\u2019t be both.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shift in Trump\u2019s popularity among Israelis is closely entwined with Netanyahu\u2019s domestic standing.<\/p>\n

Last October, when Trump orchestrated a Gaza ceasefire and pressured Netanyahu to end a two-year war in exchange for the release of nearly two dozen living Israeli hostages,<\/a> two-thirds of Israelis believed the US leader prioritized Israel\u2019s security needs. That sentiment has now reversed; 71% of Israelis believe the US president could abandon Israel\u2019s interests in a future Iran deal.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party and his ruling coalition , the most nationalist and religious in the country\u2019s history , have been slipping in the polls since reclaiming power in 2022, and any momentum they regained has eroded recently. For two weeks, opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot has outpaced Netanyahu in opinion polls of who is better suited to lead the country.<\/p>\n

Vance spars with Israeli politicians over Iran deal<\/p>\n

On Thursday, in an unprecedented rebuke, US Vice President JD Vance hit back at Israeli politicians<\/a> who\u2019ve criticized the interim deal, making veiled reference to how far Israel\u2019s international reputation has fallen since its war in Gaza.<\/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,\u201d Vance said at the White House. \u201cIf I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance suggested Israel needs to address its security needs via diplomacy as well as military operations, saying \u201cyou can\u2019t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem,\u201d echoing some of Israel\u2019s harshest critics.<\/p>\n

The next day, after the clashes at the border worsened overnight, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was blunt about what he hopes is his government\u2019s approach: \u201cFor every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. All of Lebanon must burn!\u201d he wrote on X\/Twitter.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s and 1980s, Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in the Galilee Panhandle, became a prominent symbol of Israel\u2019s ongoing struggle against cross-border terrorism, weathering attacks by Palestinian militant groups from Lebanese territory.<\/p>\n

The threat later transitioned into decades of conflict with Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

Eliav Raichbach, the owner of a car shop born and bred in Kiryat Shmona, chose to stay even after his garage took a direct rocket hit in October 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lived through every war here,\u201d he said, \u201cbut today\u2019s situation is the worst. I estimate that 40% of Kiryat Shmona\u2019s businesses have not reopened and half the residents who evacuated at the start of the war haven\u2019t returned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polling data indicates that the backlash against government policies is striking at Likud\u2019s core electoral base. This marks a severe shift for places like Kiryat Shmona , a staunch Likud stronghold where the party won nearly 50% of the vote in the last election , and a significant portion of Metula, which backed the ruling coalition.<\/p>\n

Miry and Raichbach are both former Netanyahu supporters who stopped backing him after his indictment in a graft trial six years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no such thing as an irreplaceable man , even Bibi has a replacement,\u201d says Raichbach. \u201cHe was once good for Israel, but that\u2019s no longer the case.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor David Azoulay\u2019s office in Metula, Israel\u2019s northernmost town, features a portrait of US President Donald Trump and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,42,86,142930,46,88,43,57543,3950,40,38,41,39,1032],"class_list":["post-503925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-hezbollah","tag-iran-deal","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-news","tag-northern-israel","tag-switzerland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}