EVIAN, France — A tentative US-Iran peace framework announced on day 108 of the war has fractured the Western alliance at the G7 even before it is signed. President Donald Trump declared the deal moving to a “second stage” and told reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed to be “more responsible with respect to Lebanon.” Israeli leaders, across both coalition and opposition, have condemned the agreement as a capitulation, with Netanyahu vowing that Israel will not withdraw from southern Lebanon regardless of what Washington and Tehran have negotiated.
Trump confirmed from the G7 summit in Evian on Tuesday that the US and Iran had reached a tentative framework agreement after months of indirect talks. The deal, expected to be signed on Friday June 19, would establish a 60-day ceasefire between Iran and its proxies and the US-backed coalition, reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, and initiate nuclear negotiations.
“This deal makes it loud and clear that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told the press. He described the agreement as entering a “second stage” of follow-on talks, suggesting that Phase 2 would grapple with the unresolved questions of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles and the future of its enrichment program.
Phase 1 includes the immediate ceasefire and the reopening of the strait, which has been effectively blockaded by Iran-aligned forces since early March, disrupting global oil markets. Phase 2 would tackle the harder questions: how much enriched uranium Iran may retain, under what inspection regime, and whether it will be permitted to continue enrichment at all. Those talks have not yet begun, and negotiators acknowledged they could take months.
But the G7 stage shifted quickly from the deal itself to the cracks it has opened between Washington and Jerusalem.
Speaking hours after the framework was announced, Trump turned his attention to Netanyahu. He said the Israeli prime minister needed to be “more responsible with respect to Lebanon” and suggested that Israeli military operations “go on forever” and “throw a negative light on the big deal.” The remarks, delivered in a single press conference, marked the first time Trump has publicly criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the Lebanon front since the war expanded in March.
The Israeli response came swiftly.
Netanyahu, at a press conference in Jerusalem on Monday evening before Trump’s G7 remarks, said Israel does not know the terms of the US-Iran deal and has not been briefed by Washington. “With or without an agreement, Iran will never have nuclear weapons,” he said. He then made explicit what the deal’s framework leaves ambiguous: “We will stay in the Lebanon security buffer zone for as long as necessary.”
That statement directly contravenes the spirit of the ceasefire, which envisions a mutual de-escalation on all fronts including Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah and Iranian-backed forces in southern Lebanon.
Israeli analysts across the political spectrum described the agreement as a strategic reversal. Writing in Haaretz, commentators called it an American capitulation that rewards Iranian aggression after 108 days of warfare. Middle East Eye characterized the deal as evidence of Israel’s declining influence in Washington, noting that the framework was negotiated without Israeli input and presented as a fait accompli.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid joined coalition figures in criticizing the terms. The rare bipartisan consensus underscored the depth of Israeli distrust: neither the government nor the opposition believes the deal will prevent Iran from eventually acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The underlying tension is structural. Israel’s campaign in southern Lebanon — which Netanyahu describes as necessary to push Iranian and Hezbollah forces back from the border — is on a collision course with a ceasefire that would freeze those forces in place. Trump’s public admonishment signals that Washington expects Israel to fall in line with the diplomatic track, but Netanyahu’s domestic political survival depends on maintaining the operation.
What comes next is uncertain. The deal is not yet signed. Friday’s signing ceremony in Geneva will be the first real test of whether the framework holds. If it does, Phase 2 negotiations will open the hardest questions — uranium stockpiles, enrichment rights, and the architecture of a post-war Middle East. If it collapses, the region returns to a war that has already drawn in the US, Iran, Israel, and proxy forces across four countries.
For now, the G7 has produced a peace that nobody fully trusts and that key allies have already begun to resist.