Just a few hours after the American bombings on the southern coast of Iran, Tehran responded. This Saturday, the Revolutionary Guard announced attacks against United States positions in the Gulf region and warned that any new aggression would provoke a "broader" response. At the same time, in Lebanon, the framework agreement signed the previous day in Washington between Beirut and Israel was already born under the noise of explosions and internal dissent.

Where for decades the commercial life of southern Lebanon was concentrated, today tons of concrete, twisted beams and gaping facades accumulate. The arches that survived the bombings rise over empty shops, broken shop windows and streets where it is difficult to recognize where one business began and the next ended. Several mosques and husseiniyas, the religious buildings of the Shiites, still show the wounds of the attacks. In some streets in the center, the silence is only broken by the noise of machinery removing rubble.

Iran announced this Saturday the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which occurs, according to the country's most important military command, due to "the clear violation by the United States of the first clause of the Memorandum of Understanding" and "in response to the continuous and persistent ceasefire violations by the Zionist regime in southern Lebanon". The agreement signed this week between Washington and Tehran establishes, textually, the "immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon"establishes, textually, the "immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon".

After hours of Israeli bombings this Friday over southern Lebanon and the Baalbek region, which left at least 47 dead and 97 injured, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the United States announced that Israel and Hezbollah have accepted a new truce negotiated with the mediation of Qatar and Iran. However, even after the agreement came into effect, Israeli attacks continued to be registered around Nabatieh, while Hezbollah claimed to have begun to respect the cessation of hostilities from the moment the agreement with Tel Aviv was announced.

This Tuesday's statements from Tehran and Washington show that the battle to interpret the agreement between the United States and Iran has only just begun. While the official signing of the memorandum of understanding remains scheduled for next Friday in Geneva, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, has increased pressure on Israel by stating that the end of the war in Lebanon constitutes an inseparable condition for the end of the conflict with Iran.

The memorandum that the United States and Iran have virtually signed and plan to formalize this Friday in Switzerland is presented as an attempt to extinguish several fires simultaneously in the Middle East. It is not a definitive treaty, but a framework of understanding that opens sixty days of negotiation and seeks, above all, to avoid a new regional escalation.

The United States and Iran have finally closed a deal that provides for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the cessation of military operations in the region. The first to announce the pact was Pakistan, which is acting as mediator, and then it was confirmed by the US President, Donald Trump, and the Iranian regime.

After decades of conflicts, interventions and containment policies, Israel is militarily safer today than many of its neighbours, but the region is more unstable than ever. In southern Lebanon, Israeli bombings continue despite the ceasefire announced in April under American mediation. On the ground, the agreement has not led to a stable situation. The Israeli army continues to carry out operations in border areas, while the Lebanese government denounces repeated attacks, destruction of homes and the blocking of the return of displaced persons. Lebanese authorities speak of thousands of incidents since the truce came into force.

Diplomatic efforts to bring the United States and Iran closer are going through one of their most delicate moments since the two sides resumed indirect contacts months ago. While Qatari negotiators traveled to Tehran this Wednesday and Pakistan intensified diplomatic efforts to prevent a new escalation, the exchanges of fire in recent hours have once again cast doubt on the viability of any progress.

The exchange of attacks between Israel and Iran has stopped, at least for now. Iran has declared its military operations concluded this Monday, although it has warned that it will resume them if Israeli bombings against Lebanon continue. Iran launched several attacks this Sunday night, for the first time since the ceasefire signed on April 8, in response to Israeli bombings in the southern neighborhoods of Beirut. And, although it has announced a halt, the Iranian military command has warned that Tehran will act "even more forcefully" if attacks against its interests and those of its allies in the region resume.

100 days after the joint attack by the United States and Israel against Iran, the war is accelerating again. This Sunday, Iran has fired several waves of missiles against Israel for the first time since the ceasefire signed on April 8. This was Tehran's response to the Israeli attack on the southern neighborhoods of Beirut, just four days after the announcement of a new agreement reached between Israel and Lebanon in Washington. The bombing of Dahieh, Hezbollah's political and social stronghold, has left at least two dead and around twenty injured and has marked a new turn in a conflict that, far from showing signs of de-escalation, continues to expand on the ground.

Forty-four years after the start of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon on June 6, 1982, which led to the siege of the capital, Beirut faces an increasingly widespread feeling: exhaustion. Not that of a specific war, but that of a city that has lived for more than four decades amidst intermittent conflicts, incomplete reconstructions, and crises that never seem to be resolved.

For just a few hours, Washington managed to create the impression that a new era could be opening in Lebanon. After two days of trilateral negotiations, the United States announced a ceasefire agreement late Wednesday between Israel and Lebanon, presented a roadmap for the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, and set new talks for the end of June. But while the statement circulated among government palaces, another reality was asserting itself on the ground.

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a ceasefire to end hostilities, the Trump administration announced this Wednesday, in the United States' attempt to close the Lebanese front, one of the main obstacles to reaching a broader agreement to end the war with Iran.

Despite de-escalation promises from Washington, in southern Lebanon nothing seems to have changed this Tuesday. The inhabitants of Nabatiyeh have barely had time to process the ceasefire announcements when sirens, evacuation orders, and Israeli bombings have once again imposed themselves over any expectation of calm.

The inhabitants of the southern suburbs of Beirut found themselves on Monday facing a scene they thought they had left behind facing a scene they thought they had left behind. After threats from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, numerous residents began to leave the area for fear of a new bombing campaign against Hezbollah's stronghold. It was not a formal evacuation order, nor was it clear when eventual attacks might occur. But the message was enough to reignite fear. Katz warned that if Hezbollah continues to launch rockets against Israeli cities and towns, the army will respond by hitting targets in the southern suburbs of the capital. Hours later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Defense Minister himself ordered the army to prepare to attack the area, although Donald Trump, assured shortly after, that he had spoken with the prime minister and Hezbollah officials to stop the escalation. Uncertainty, as in every chapter of this war, is accentuated.

The arrival of the head of Pakistani diplomacy, Ishaq Dar, in Washington last week once again fueled the feeling that an understanding between the United States and Iran was possible. For hours, diplomatic leaks and headlines in international media hinted at the possibility of an already advanced draft, discreetly prepared with Pakistan's mediation. But the reality, cautiously confirmed by both sides, is simpler: no final agreement exists yet, and positions are still far from coinciding.

The fragile truce in Lebanon has once again crumbled, thread by thread, under an escalation that is no longer confined to the southern border, but has reached the capital again and projects the conflict into a broader dimension. In the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday's Israeli attack marked a new turning point. The target was a commander of Hezbollah's missile unit, linked to the structure responsible for the launches against northern Israel. The bombing, described by the Israeli army as "selective," has brought the war back to the heart of the capital's periphery after weeks of relative containment.

The fragile ceasefire that since April had partially contained the violence in Lebanon is once again faltering following a strong Israeli escalation that began Monday night, the most intense since the first weeks of the offensive. The new troop movements respond to the call of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to "press the accelerator even harder" against Hezbollah. While Donald Trump tries to keep indirect negotiations with Iran open, and Washington insists on the possibility of a regional agreement – despite the United States' bombings of Iranian positions this Tuesday in the early morning –, on the ground the weapons do not fall silent. Israel has expanded operations, mobilized reservists and multiplied attacks from the south to the Bekaa Valley, in the east of the country, a key area for Lebanese agriculture. In parallel, the Shiite militia Hezbollah has responded in recent hours with 22 drone and rocket attacks on Israeli positions. Their targets have included Israeli soldiers, tanks, barracks and buildings. Direct combat has also been recorded north of the Litani River. The Shiite organization continues to carry out a dynamic that, according to analyst Lina Khatib, associated with Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program, also responds to directives from Iran, interested in keeping Lebanon within the broader negotiation framework with the United States.

In Nabatieh, the silence only lasts until the next explosion. From the terrace of a makeshift rescue base, Mohamed Sulayman scans the southern Lebanese valley for columns of smoke. Every gray cloud on the horizon could signify a hit house, a bombed road, or a family trapped under rubble. When the phone rings, volunteers rush to the ambulances without knowing if they will return.