The head of the Iranian negotiating team and president of Parliament, Mohamed Baqer Qalifab, has warned that Tehran could suspend talks with the United States following Sunday's Israeli attack on the stronghold of the Lebanese Shiite party-militia Hezbollah in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon; a bombing that, as the Iranian Army has also warned, "will not go unanswered."
The latest victim count released by the official Lebanese agency NNA raises the number of dead to three and the injured to 15 following the impact of at least four laser-guided missiles against a residential building in the Dahiya neighborhood, in the Ghobeiri area. The attack has caused "significant damage to nearby buildings and businesses," according to the same source. Israel maintains that the operation was carried out in retaliation for previous Hezbollah airstrikes against its territory.
Tehran has explicitly made the signing of any pact with Washington conditional on the immediate end of Israeli offensives in Lebanon. However, the strike against Dahiya is particularly unacceptable to Iran, as it is a densely populated urban area and, at the same time, the main operational center of its key ally in the country, Hezbollah, considered practically an Iranian political and military extension on Lebanese territory.
The attack also occurs at a particularly delicate moment, given that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, had announced that he would sign the expected memorandum of understanding with Iran this very day to immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz and launch a 60-day period of intensive negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program and other points of tension, under a reinforced ceasefire, especially in the Lebanese scenario.
In this context, Qalifab interprets the Israeli bombing as a sign that either the United States is deceiving Iran or it lacks the capacity to contain its ally. "The attack by the Zionists shows once again that the United States either does not have the will to fulfill its commitments or does not have the capacity to do so," he stated in a message disseminated on social media.
The negotiator also stressed that "By giving the green light to the regime (Israel), it is impossible for them to obtain concessions. The 'good cop' and 'bad cop' game is outdated. If they do not have the will or the capacity to fulfill their commitments, it is not possible to continue down this path."
Another response from Iran to the bombing in Beirut has come from the joint command center of the Army, Jatam al-Anbiya base. Its spokesman, Sardar Asadi, has assured that "the crimes against the southern suburbs will not go unpunished." It should be recalled that a similar offensive the previous weekend triggered an Iranian response for several days against Israeli territory and against US military positions in the Persian Gulf.
In parallel, the president of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Parliament, Ebrahim Azizi, has stressed that "a strong response is on its way." In his opinion, "Today's crime by the Zionist regime in Dahiya, Beirut, demonstrates once again that the United States is weak and lacks credibility, as it is not even capable of controlling this illegitimate regime."
Before this new escalation, Iranian representatives were already showing great pessimism about the possibility of reaching an agreement this Sunday. Early in the day, they were still examining the draft in Tehran with a delegation from Qatar that had arrived in the Iranian capital.
According to the semi-official Fars agency, at that time the negotiators considered it practically unfeasible to sign the pact on the date announced by Trump. "The examination of the political, legal, and technical aspects, at the expert level, is still ongoing," the outlet indicated, citing a source close to the negotiating team.