Melissa Clarke: The US President says he's spoken to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and convinced him not to launch attacks on the Lebanese capital, Beirut. But it's not the only call Donald Trump has made, speaking through intermediaries to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and convincing it to stop attacking Israel. The phone call diplomacy followed an announcement by Iran that it was suspending talks with the US on ending the broader regional war in protest over Israel's conduct in Lebanon. Middle East correspondent Matthew Doran is in Jerusalem.
Matthew Doran: Mel, good morning. It has been an incredibly tense day, but it appears that the pressure valve here may have been released through an intervention by the US President Donald Trump. Beirut was on edge for most of the day after a declaration from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he had ordered strikes on Dahia in the city's south, the suburb which is often referred to as Hezbollah's stronghold in the Lebanese capital. Now that had followed intensifying fighting between the Lebanese militant group and Israeli forces in the south of the country over the weekend. Israel expanding its ground invasion of the south and continuing its deadly attacks on cities and towns. Hezbollah in turn launching volley after volley of rockets and explosive drones at Israeli troops inside southern Lebanon and on Israeli border communities as well. We know that many people had fled Dahia worried about what was coming, but those strikes didn't actually begin. And then we heard from Donald Trump. He made an announcement on his Truth Social platform where he said that he had a very productive phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Bibi as he calls him. And he said that there would be no troops going to Beirut and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back. He then added that he'd also through highly placed representatives had a very good call with Hezbollah and they had agreed that all shooting would stop, that Israel wouldn't attack them and that they would not attack Israel. Now there are two significant points there. If what he says he secured is the case. First he has managed to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu into pulling back and the Israeli Prime Minister has been facing significant pressure from the military and also from Israeli politicians to escalate this. But secondly, the US president is saying he's spoken to Hezbollah here in some form and the US as Australia considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization. So regardless of what concessions he's managed to get that in and of itself is significant. And one of Hezbollah's MPs in the Lebanese parliament says the group is in agreement. So we'll need to watch to see how this plays out in the coming hours, whether or not it's as watertight as the president makes it sound. Benjamin Netanyahu for his part already saying that Israel will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.
Melissa Clarke: And Matt, this of course leads to the question of what does it mean for negotiations between the US and Iran more broadly?
Matthew Doran: It certainly does. And that might have been what forced Donald Trump's hand here, the declaration overnight from Iran that it was suspending talks on a peace deal with the US in protest over Israel's actions in Lebanon. If we cast our minds back to early April when the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire in their war, there was this immediate dispute as to whether Lebanon was covered by the truce. Iran and mediators Pakistan said it was. Israel supported by the US considered it to be separate, even though this conflict began as a result of Hezbollah weighing into the broader conflict. Iran said it viewed Israel and the US as connected and it was holding the US responsible for what was going on. And since his post about talking to Benjamin Netanyahu and Hezbollah, Donald Trump has also said that talks with Iran are progressing at a rapid pace, even though he told the American network NBC just before that, he also hadn't heard from Iran saying talks are off. So they might be on, they might be off. We need to express some caution in necessarily accepting what the US president is saying about those negotiations, considering how often he's talked up the prospect of progress and it hasn't happened. And there are still considerable sticking points at play there.
Melissa Clarke: Matthew Doran in Jerusalem.