President Donald Trump issued an extraordinary public rebuke of Israel on Sunday, declaring that its air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs “should not have happened” and warning both Israel and Iran not to “blow it” as Washington and Tehran edged towards a framework agreement to end the Middle East conflict. The strike, which Lebanese authorities said killed three people, targeted what Israel described as Hezbollah infrastructure in the Dahieh district, a response to what the Israeli military called a cross-border projectile launch that caused no casualties. Trump, writing on his Truth Social platform, insisted that a peace deal remained “very close” and would bring stability to the region, including Lebanon, but acknowledged that the attack had delayed the signing by several hours on a day he had hoped to mark his 80th birthday with a diplomatic breakthrough.

Viewed from Tehran, the timing of the Israeli operation was interpreted as a deliberate provocation. Iran’s lead negotiator warned that the strike cast doubt on Washington’s ability to enforce commitments, and officials signalled that no final decision had been taken on the framework, despite Trump’s repeated assertions that an electronic signing was imminent. Tehran has long insisted that any pact must encompass the parallel conflict in Lebanon, where Israel has been pursuing a campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. The proposed memorandum of understanding, details of which were circulated by Iranian media, is expected to trigger a 60-day negotiation period and, if concluded, would see the Strait of Hormuz reopened to international shipping.

Trump’s frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was laid bare in a subsequent telephone interview with the Axios news outlet, in which the president used a string of expletives to describe his reaction upon learning of the strike an hour before the anticipated signing. “Why did Netanyahu launch this damn attack? I was so pissed,” Trump said, adding that the Israeli leader “has no fucking judgment.” Israeli sources confirmed that Washington had been given advance notice of the operation, yet the public dressing-down underscored the deepening rift between the two allies at a critical juncture. Trump later told Fox News he had instructed Netanyahu to halt further strikes and had asked Iran not to retaliate, framing the moment as a choice between “a long and beautiful peace” and renewed escalation.

For all the White House’s insistence that a deal is within reach, the path forward remains precarious. European diplomats, who have been sidelined in a process led largely by Pakistan and other intermediaries, note that the sequencing of any agreement is fraught with ambiguity: Iran has not confirmed a signing date, and the Beirut strike has handed hardliners in Tehran fresh ammunition to question American seriousness. Meanwhile, the humanitarian and strategic stakes continue to mount. Should the framework collapse, the risk of a wider conflagration stretching from the Levant to the Gulf would intensify sharply. The coming hours will reveal whether Trump’s birthday optimism was prescient or merely the latest chapter in a diplomatic rollercoaster that has already seen the president promise a deal nearly forty times.