US Vice President JD Vance has issued an extraordinary rebuke to Israeli critics of the Iran peace deal, warning them not to alienate their "only powerful ally" left in the world.
In a briefing at the White House on Thursday, Vance told members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's extremist cabinet members to "wake up and smell the reality," amid growing tensions between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.
"Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world superpower," Vance said.
"If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world."
The two countries jointly launched the war on Iran on February 28 but Trump has chastised Israel for continuing attacks on Lebanon that threatened to derail the deal with Tehran.
"Over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars," Vance added.
"The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump -- and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation."
In an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday, Vance directly named Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as having attacked the deal.
"I guess my response to them would be — what is your exact proposal? You're a country of nine million people. You can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have," Vance told the Times.
Trump demands complete truce, including in Lebanon
Trump himself has been increasingly critical of the high death toll from Israeli invasion, particularly in Lebanon.
"When two drones are shot into the desert and drop harmlessly, you don’t have to knock down buildings in Beirut. They could behave better, and frankly they could do a better job," Trump said in a press conference at the G7 summit in France on Wednesday.
Trump on Thursday urged Israel and other Middle Eastern countries to stick to the truce.
"We expect a complete Ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Trump said on his Truth Social network.
Israel has said it will not abide by the US-Iran peace deal.
On Thursday, Israel killed three Lebanese people in its attacks.
Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported that "an enemy drone targeted a car" in the Kfar Tibnit area, killing two people.
In the neighbouring village of Zebdine, another drone killed one more person, NNA said.
Israel's military, meanwhile, announced the killing of one of its soldiers the night before in an incident in south Lebanon that also left seven others wounded.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said that peacekeepers in Lebanon had also reported exchanges of fire on Thursday.
"So far today, 143 trajectories of projectiles were observed. Of these, 119 were attributed to the Israel Defense Forces (Israeli army), with the remainder to Hezbollah," Dujarric said at a daily briefing.
"Yesterday, 364 projectile launches were observed, of which 330 were attributed to the IDF (Israeli army) and 34 to Hezbollah."
