The past 24 hours have confirmed what analysts have feared for weeks: since April, the fragile structure holding together ceasefires, negotiations, and diplomatic gestures in the Middle East has begun to collapse. Rockets launched from Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes hitting southern suburbs of Beirut, Iranian missiles crossing the skies of the Arab Mashriq (Levant) countries, and Israel bombing targets inside Iran.
The scene appears both shocking and darkly inevitable. To understand how we reached this point, we need to trace the logic of both sides. Neither is acting recklessly, but all are trapped in a suffocating deadlock. The direct cause of this week's rising tension is a sequence of events: Hezbollah has resumed rocket attacks on northern Israel.
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Israel struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah’s stronghold. Since June 4, Iran has warned that any attack on Beirut would lead to a "comprehensive resumption" of war and responded with ballistic missile strikes against Israel. Israel replied in kind, and the reciprocal attacks followed one another.
As soon as signs emerged that "retribution was sought," Hezbollah targeted inside Israel for the second time within 24 hours. However, this series of attacks has much deeper roots. When the US and Israel’s military campaign against Iran ended in early April with a fragile ceasefire, the agreement did not address or resolve fundamental disputes; it merely froze them.
The ceasefire allowed Israel to continue controlling parts of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah to remain armed and defiant, Iran’s nuclear program to remain in a gray zone, and the Strait of Hormuz to stay effectively under Iranian control. Neither side achieved its goals. Israel failed to bring about regime change in Tehran, and Iran could not expel Israel from Lebanon.
The ceasefire was not peace but an armed pause and war of attrition. Far from the real terms of any agreement, Netanyahu doubts that a "good" deal can be negotiated under the ceasefire. Israel is aware that "Iran has never won a war but has never lost a negotiation."
The Lebanon front was one of the biggest obstacles undermining the broader diplomatic process. Since March, over 3,000 Lebanese have been killed, more than a million displaced, and Israeli ground forces have advanced kilometers into southern Lebanon. Although Hezbollah covertly withdrew from the south after the 2024 war, it continued fighting under Iran’s orders.
Both Iran and Hezbollah demand Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon as a precondition for any agreement and explicitly link the nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran with the Lebanon front. Israel’s attack on Beirut that triggered this latest round was not a miscalculation. It was a deliberate choice with logical reasons from Netanyahu’s perspective.
Netanyahu never fully embraced Trump’s diplomatic process. Since February, when he sat opposite Trump in the Oval Office and presented a red line demanding the elimination of Iran’s ballistic missile capability as a precondition for any deal, the contradiction between Israeli and US goals has become clear to all observers.
Trump wants a deal that allows him to declare victory before the midterms, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and shift US focus away from the Middle East. Netanyahu wants to permanently weaken Iran. Far from the real terms of any agreement, Netanyahu doubts that a "good" deal can be negotiated under the ceasefire.
Israel is aware, as Trump said before becoming president, that "Iran has never won a war but has never lost a negotiation." The Islamic Republic is patient and knows President Trump wants to end the war. Therefore, Israel has preferred negotiations conducted under fire, interrupted by tensions as seen since April, rather than anxious calm.
Netanyahu also knows that as elections approach, the risk of ignoring an Iranian attack on Israel is greater than the risk of angering Trump.
Continuously targeting Hezbollah without escalating into war with Iran was a way to maintain pressure on Tehran. Despite declines in power and capabilities, Hezbollah remains one of Iran’s strongest proxies. Before the 2024 war, it was not just a proxy but a fundamental pillar of Iran’s deterrence against Israel.
Since then, Hezbollah has embarked on rearmament efforts with Iran’s direct assistance, playing a more active role in rebuilding its strength. There is no doubt that the decision to continue the war in Lebanon is also based on political calculations. When Hezbollah decided in October 2023 to open its own front in support of Gaza, Israel promised northern residents protection from this threat.
The 2024 conflict was seen as a success, but this success was largely eroded by 2026 after Hezbollah’s drones still demonstrated the capability to threaten Israel. The disappointed northern residents represent Netanyahu’s failure to convince part of the Israeli public that Israel’s current situation is better than on October 6, 2023.
A disappointing deal with Iran could reinforce this impression and prevent some right-wing voters who abandoned Bibi after October 7 from voting for him again in the upcoming elections. It would also signal that the relationship between Trump and Bibi is no longer as strong and that even Washington is beginning to lose patience and stamina.
That is why Trump’s June 6 statement, "Netanyahu does not decide how things will go, and he will have no choice but to accept a deal with Iran. I make all the decisions, not him," was so impactful. It was the most direct rebuke by a recent US president to an Israeli prime minister.
Trump told the Financial Times that the Israeli prime minister would have no choice but to accept the deal. However, Netanyahu knows Trump’s influence has limits. The American president cannot publicly humiliate his top regional ally without paying a domestic political price, and Netanyahu has spent 30 years learning how to maneuver in Washington.
Netanyahu also knows that as elections approach, the risk of ignoring an Iranian brazen attack on Israel is greater than the risk of angering Trump. He may have presented this argument directly to Trump, asked the president to accept Israel’s response despite Trump’s clear opposition, warning that otherwise Israel would face unilateral action consequences.
From the outside, Iran’s behavior seems reckless. Its economy is exhausted; years of sanctions worsened by war chaos have pushed inflation to crisis levels, and the Strait of Hormuz deadlock has impacted US mortgage and energy markets.
The February operation that killed Supreme Leader Khamenei and left the surviving regime more fragile and suspicious than before. So why is Tehran escalating tensions? Any deal will be limited and amount to postponing a full end to the war and real negotiations to a second phase that may never come.
The answer lies in what Iran is trying to prevent. Reuters reported on June 1 that Iran is pushing for a limited temporary agreement. Iran wants sanctions relief in exchange for deferring the nuclear issue without making irreversible concessions on enrichment.
The regime’s entire negotiation strategy relies on maintaining credibility as a party that cannot be easily bypassed or imposed conditions upon.
If Iran accepts a ceasefire framework that disarms Hezbollah in Lebanon and allows Israeli forces to remain in southern Lebanon, it would send a message to Washington that it might be forced to completely abandon its proxy network, which it sees as the primary deterrent against any future attacks on its territory.
Although Iran is more willing to take risks than its rival in Washington, it likely knows that the US blockade will eventually harm it and protests could resume. In fact, some limited protests were seen before tensions rose again. Despite recent tensions, President Trump still appears to favor diplomacy.
Although Israel may have secured some maneuvering room at the possible expense of Israel-US relations, it still must consider Trump’s wishes and the war’s continuation.
