US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he maintains a strong relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but stressed that the Israeli leader should act more responsibly regarding military operations in Lebanon.
Speaking at the G7 summit, Trump said he had conveyed to Israel that he disapproved of its recent strike in Beirut. He also suggested that Syria could potentially take a more effective role in dealing with Hezbollah than Israel currently is.
He remarked that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has been ongoing for too long, noting that too many lives have been lost in the process. Trump argued that repeated large-scale strikes, including the destruction of residential buildings, risk harming civilians who are not involved in militant activity.
“You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody because there’s a lot of people in those apartment houses - and they’re not all Hezbollah,” he said, criticising the scale of the attack.
The US president added that he “didn’t like” the latest Israeli strike, describing it as excessive. Despite this, he reiterated his long-standing support for Israel, claiming that without US backing, the country would not exist.
“Without me there would be no Israel,” Trump said, asserting that no previous US president had taken similar actions in support of Israel.
Trump further suggested that Syria might be better positioned to deal with Hezbollah, saying he believed it could handle the situation more effectively than Israel.
When asked about the durability of the US-Iran peace agreement in the context of ongoing Israeli strikes in Lebanon, Trump said the deal could still hold. He described the Lebanon situation as a “minor war” compared to Iran, which he characterised as the central issue, while calling the Hezbollah conflict a recurring and smaller-scale flashpoint.
