Trump at G7: "If Israel Can't Finish Hezbollah, Syria Will"

President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered a fresh broadside against Israel's handling of Lebanon, telling reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be "more responsible" and that Israel has been fighting Hezbollah "too long" — while floating the jaw-dropping suggestion that Syria could do the job better.

Speaking after a bilateral meeting with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at the French resort town of Evian, Trump praised his relationship with Netanyahu even as he subjected him to another round of public humiliation. "I've had a great relationship with Bibi," Trump said, "but now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon."

He did not stop there. "Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed," the president added. Asked whether the Iran deal could survive further Israeli strikes in Lebanon, Trump said it could, but warned that a recent Israeli attack on Beirut had gone too far. "Israel was supposed to end the thing with Hezbollah fast. But it's taking them forever."

Then came the line that will reverberate in Jerusalem. "If Israel can't do the job without killing everyone else," Trump said, "Syria will do the job. They'll do it better."

The reference was to Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose government has emerged as an unlikely American partner in the region since the fall of Assad. The suggestion that Israel could be replaced by Syria in the effort against Hezbollah, floated publicly, at a major international summit, by Israel's closest ally, represents a new level of pressure on Netanyahu's government.

On the Iran deal itself, Trump declared the agreement complete and moving to a second phase. "Our deal with Iran is done and it should succeed," Trump said, adding that he expects the second stage of negotiations, set to begin Friday in Switzerland, to be easier than the first. He pushed back hard on reports that the United States had committed to investing in Iran's reconstruction, calling a report that Washington would pay $300 million to Tehran "fake news." "We have a fair and good deal. We are not investing any money in Iran," he said flatly. "We have the right to go in there in the future and do something if I want to do something, but we are not investing any money and we have no commitment to invest money in Iran."

Trump also repeated what has become a signature refrain in recent weeks, telling reporters: "If not for me, Israel would not exist today, and every person with a brain in Israel knows that."

The remarks came as Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi added a new complication, declaring that any Israeli attack on Lebanon or continued IDF presence in Lebanese territory would be considered by Tehran a violation of the MOU with the United States — effectively threatening to use the deal as a weapon to constrain Israeli operations.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance, speaking to CNN, acknowledged that several major issues remain unresolved in the agreement. "In a number of issues, we're going to have to work those things out during the technical negotiation phase," Vance said, adding that the MOU's first clause commits Iran, and the United States, to regional peace and stability, including a cessation of Iranian funding for "violent terrorist organizations."

Israel's security cabinet is expected to convene in the coming hours.

On the ground in southern Lebanon, the situation remains unchanged. An Iranian Press TV journalist was wounded by shrapnel while reporting from southern Lebanon, and Lebanese civilians returning home are finding widespread destruction. Hezbollah has continued attacking IDF forces in the field, even as world leaders in a French resort town debate the terms of a deal meant to end the fighting.