The Iranian supreme leader’s intervention comes amid reports of a halt to attacks and renewed diplomacy between the US and Iran.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has said that peace between Tehran and the United States is contingent on Israel stopping its attacks on Lebanon.
Khamenei made the statement on X on Sunday.
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“Iran has designated the preservation of Lebanon’s territorial integrity, and the absolute, unconditional termination of the Zionist regime’s aggression as the primary condition for any agreement to ending the imposed war against the aggressive US,” he wrote.
Khamenei also voiced his support for the Lebanese group Hezbollah, its former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and the people of southern Lebanon – the focal point of Israel’s attacks – in a series of posts.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the defense of these oppressed yet powerful mujahideen [of Hezbollah] to be its strategic mandate,” Khamenei said.
Khamenei’s intervention comes amid reports of a halt to attacks and renewed diplomacy between Iran and the US.
Israel invaded Lebanon in 2024 and has occupied swaths of the country’s south since.
On June 26, Lebanon and Israel signed a US-mediated framework agreement stipulating a phased Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territory, but without a timetable for the withdrawal.
Instead, it said Israel will withdraw from occupied territories once Hezbollah is disarmed.
While the first phase is Israel’s withdrawal from three “pilot zones”, the Lebanese army said on Sunday that Israeli forces are obstructing the process, including by refusing to withdraw from designated territories.
As of Sunday, Israel was still bulldozing, shelling and conducting combing operations with machineguns across large areas of southern Lebanese territory it is occupying.
At least 4,329 people have been killed, while 37 Israeli soldiers and four Israeli civilians have died in the latest round of violence in Lebanon.
Israel violated a previous ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel more than 10,000 times, according to UN peacekeepers.
Khamenei is the son of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He was selected as supreme leader after Israel and the US killed his father in air strikes in the opening days of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Khamenei’s statement on Lebanon comes as war spreads into Yemen, with reports of an exchange of attacks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/26/us-iran-peace-deal-depends-on-israel-leaving-lebanon-says-khamenei?traffic_source=rss