President Donald Trump has issued an unusually direct warning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging Israel to restrict its military operations in Lebanon to precise, targeted strikes and to avoid a full resumption of hostilities. In an interview with Axios, Trump said he had told Netanyahu that destroying buildings was “too terrible” and damaged Israel’s international standing. The president expressed admiration for Lebanon and its leadership, blaming Iran and its proxy Hezbollah for the country’s devastation. The intervention comes as a fragile United States-brokered ceasefire, already only partially observed, risks unravelling entirely before its scheduled expiry in mid-May.

Viewed from Jerusalem, the timing of Trump’s admonition is significant. Israeli officials have privately requested a diplomatic window of no more than two to three weeks, after which they want Washington’s approval to revert to what they call the “original plan” — a return to wider military escalation. Netanyahu conveyed this directly to Trump during their phone call on Wednesday, according to Israeli media reports. On the ground, the head of the Israel Defence Forces, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, declared from southern Lebanon that there would be no halt to fighting, underscoring a clear divergence between the prime minister’s diplomatic manoeuvring and the military’s operational posture.

From Beirut, the picture is equally fraught. Lebanese officials fear the complete collapse of the ceasefire, and no progress has been reported in parallel peace talks. Trump’s remarks linking Hezbollah’s fate to Iran’s — “when we finish with Iran, then with Hezbollah” — offer little reassurance to a government struggling to assert sovereignty. Analysts in the region note that this framing reduces Lebanon to a theatre in a wider confrontation with Tehran, leaving the Lebanese state with minimal agency.

Looking ahead, the next two weeks will be critical. Trump’s demand for restraint suggests Washington is prioritising stability, but the Israeli military’s public defiance and the absence of tangible diplomatic breakthroughs point towards a likely escalation by mid-May. Whether the administration can enforce its preference — or whether Israel will test the limits of American patience — remains the central question as the clock ticks down on a ceasefire that was never truly implemented.