Lebanese leaders lash out at Iran and say their country should not be
used as a 'bargaining chip'
[June 06, 2026]
By FADI TAWIL and HUSSEIN MALLA
DIBBINE, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanon’s president and prime minister
criticized Iran on Friday for opposing the latest ceasefire deal between
the Lebanese government and Israel, saying their country should not be
used by Tehran as a “bargaining chip” in its talks with Washington.
The comments came as the Israeli military struck multiple parts of
southern Lebanon and issued evacuation warnings for nine villages,
including one that has sheltered thousands of people displaced by the
three-month war between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group
Hezbollah. The strikes killed nine people in six locations in southern
Lebanon, the state news agency reported.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard issued a statement Thursday
vowing that “there will be no calm in the region" if Israel doesn't
withdraw its troops from Lebanon. In an interview with CNN, Lebanese
President Joseph Aoun responded: “It’s not your job to interfere into
our country. I reject the statement totally because our people (are)
being killed, our houses being destroyed.”
In separate remarks, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called on the Lebanese
people to put their country's interest first, saying that Lebanon
"should not remain a battlefield for others.”
Both he and Aoun complained that Iran was treating their nation as “a
bargaining chip” in talks with Washington about ending the U.S.-Israeli
war against the Islamic Republic. Iran has demanded that any lasting
truce should extend to Lebanon.
Some Lebanese return to ruined villages
Even as new evacuation warnings forced hundreds of Lebanese families to
flee from some areas, people elsewhere began returning to their homes to
survey the aftermath of fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.
The militant group has rejected the ceasefire deal and demands a
complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
An Associated Press team traveling in southern Lebanon Friday saw
multiple villages in ruins, including Dibbine, near Marjayoun town, from
which Israeli troops withdrew a day earlier. It was the first time
Israeli troops exited an area in southern Lebanon since the latest
Israel-Hezbollah war began in early March.
U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese troops were at an entrance to Dibbine,
clearing rubble and opening roads. The Lebanese army set up barbed wire
at one of the entrances, preventing some residents from returning.
At least one family arrived to search the rubble of its home along the
road leading to the village, while the owner of a petrol station in
Dibbine looked at his destroyed property and called village residents to
report on the destruction he saw from behind the barbed wire.
Shrapnel and pieces of missiles were seen in the wreckage of homes
lining the road into Dibbine. Israeli troops entered the village weeks
ago for the first time and were engaged in heavy clashes with Hezbollah
fighters in the area. The troops returned this week, before withdrawing
Thursday.
The road to Dibbine was dotted with villages entirely emptied of
residents and destroyed by Israeli strikes, including Khiam. But no
Israeli troops were visible from the road.
Nearby Christian villages were largely untouched, and many of their
residents decided to stay. The strategic Beaufort castle, recently
captured by Israel, appeared in the distance, with a flag of the Israeli
Golani Brigade. Smoke from strikes around the nearby Nabatiyeh city
billowed above.
New evacuation warnings and strikes
The Israeli military issued a new set of evacuation warnings on Friday,
prompting people to leave the village of Anqoun and the area of Aarnaya,
on the edge of the predominantly Christian community of Maghdoucheh,
near the southern port city of Sidon.
Nearly three hours after the warning, Israeli warplanes struck Lebanese
villages, including Anqoun. About 2,500 people displaced by the fighting
were sheltering in Anqoun, the Lebanese news agency NNA reported.
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Lebanese soldiers deploy at a road in front of destroyed houses in
Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day
after Israeli forces withdrew following clashes with Hezbollah
fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Israel had warned Lebanese residents against returning to villages
in the south, saying the area is still a combat zone.
The U.S. brokered the ceasefire agreement Wednesday in Washington.
The deal sought to pull Lebanon away from Iran with a statement that
any agreement to cease hostilities must be reached directly through
Lebanon and Israel “and not through any separate track.”
Aoun said Hezbollah should understand that negotiations and
diplomacy are the only way “to save what’s left” of Lebanon. Its
government accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and
had made efforts to disarm the group before the latest hostilities.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has
been acting as a mediator on behalf of the group, echoed the
militants' demands for a broad Israeli withdrawal. In his first
comments since the agreement was announced, Berri said the ceasefire
should be “complete and comprehensive,” without any exceptions for
land, sea or air, and “without bulldozing and demolishing everything
that exists.”
Israeli troops have seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing
further into the country’s south than at any time since the end of
Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since the war
began. The fighting has killed at least 29 Israeli soldiers and
three civilians.
The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded, one severely,
in an encounter Friday with militants in southern Lebanon, where
another officer was severely wounded Thursday by a suspicious aerial
object or projectile.
US forces board tanker linked to Iran
The war in Lebanon threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen
the Strait of Hormuz, a globally important conduit for oil, natural
gas, fertilizer and other commodities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later
this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until
Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.
In Iran-related developments, the U.S. military said Friday that its
forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker linked to the Islamic
Republic in the Indian Ocean.
U.S. forces around the world have sought to prevent Iran from
profiting off its oil and other goods. They have been directed to
stop ships tied to Tehran or those suspected of carrying supplies
that could help its government.
The U.S. Navy has imposed a blockade of Iran’s ports as part of an
effort to force Tehran to open the strait and accept a deal to
extend a tenuous ceasefire in the war.
The U.S. also targeted Iran’s energy sector Friday with new
sanctions on a group of people, firms and tankers. The Treasury
Department said they were associated with exporting Iranian-origin
liquid petroleum gas disguised as an Omani product to customers in
South and East Asia.
___
Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Ben Finley and
Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.
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