Trump threatens to strike Iran if deal not reached

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• Netanyahu acknowledges ‘differences’ with Washington, plays down ‘deeper rifts’ • Israel continues to test Lebanon ceasefire as four killed in fresh strike • Lebanese president says Israeli occupation preventing army deployment in southern regions WASHINGTON: As the country focuses on bidding farewell to its late supreme leader, President Donald Trump said on Monday that they would either reach a deal with Iran, or “finish the job”, renewing his threat of military action. Indirect US-Iran talks ended last week without any public sign of headway toward a lasting peace, despite a 60-day ceasefire intended to create space for diplomacy following the US and Israeli strikes that triggered the conflict. “We’re either going to make a deal or we’re going to finish the job. OK. And it won’t be tough to finish the job. I’d rather make a deal, because I don’t want to affect 91 million people,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We can knock down their bridges in one hour, we can knock out their energy supply…. They don’t have any money now. We haven’t given them any money.” The 60-day ceasefire was intended by Washington to revive diplomacy on stopping Iran developing a nuclear arsenal. Separately, speaking to US media on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged “differences of opinion” between Washington and Tel Aviv, but denies a deeper rift. “We see eye-to-eye on just about everything,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “My relationship with the president is fine, and we have a way of ironing out our differences as allies who respect each other,” he added. Meanwhile, the situation in Lebanon, which was also part of the ceasefire negotiated under the US-Iran agreement, has continued to spiral with Israeli attacks continuing to test the fragile truce. In its latest salvo, Lebanese state media said an Israeli strike on a car in the country’s south on Monday killed four people, including three women. Lebanon’s official National News Agency said a school principal, her mother, a foreign female domestic worker and a male Syrian worker were killed when an Israeli drone targeted their car as they returned from inspecting their family home in Nabatieh al-Fawqa. Israel has kept up intermittent strikes on south Lebanon, particularly in the Nabatieh area, despite the two-week-old truce, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites and operatives. A lawmaker for Hezbollah, Ihab Hamade, denounced Monday’s strike as “a heinous crime against civilians” and blamed it “first and foremost” on the Lebanese state. Lebanese authorities say Israeli attacks since March 2 have killed around 4,300 people. The conflict also displaced more than one million people, but according to the United Nations more than 640,000 have returned home since June 22. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said on Monday that Israel’s occupation was preventing the Lebanese army’s deployment to the south. A statement from his office said he emphasised the need to pressure Israel to withdraw because “the occupation undermines the legitimacy of the (Lebanese) state and prevents the army from deploying, and the laying of foundations for achieving a just and lasting peace”. A day earlier, Netanyahu had reiterated that Israel’s military would maintain its presence “as long as necessary in order to protect the residents of the north and all the citizens of Israel”. Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2026

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