Israel must withdraw to pre-war positions in Lebanon: Iran

GAZA CITY, June 04 (Agencies): The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC)’s Quds Force has called for Israel to withdraw from positions it occupied in Lebanon before the outbreak of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
“Support for the resistance movement in Lebanon was a duty for all Muslims, and that removing Israel from the region was an achievable objective,” Esmail Qaani said in remarks carried by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency on Thursday.
“The essence of the resistance's demands is the withdrawal of the occupying regime (Israel) to the positions it held before the start of the 40-day war,” he added.
Qaani said Lebanese fighters would soon see the results of what he described as their “steadfast resistance".
Hezbollah rejected a ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments in US-mediated talks, as Israel kept up strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it wouldn't be withdrawing from the south.
The United States announced on Wednesday that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to implement a ceasefire contingent on Iran-backed Hezbollah ceasing fire and evacuating its fighters from areas of southern Lebanon near the border.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, whose Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group is not a party to the talks, said the negotiations were shameless, rejecting the Washington declaration as "a roadmap for the annihilation of a section of the Lebanese people and the enslavement of the rest."
Israeli attacks on Gaza killed at least nine people on Thursday, a spokesman for the civil defence agency in the Palestinian territory told the news agency.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City also reported 15 people wounded in the strikes, he added.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed a vote in the US House seeking to order the withdrawal of American troops from the Iran war, suggesting the "unpatriotic" move disrupted negotiations with Tehran.
The largely symbolic vote came "right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
"Who would do such an unpatriotic thing. They know where the negotiations stand."
Iran's supreme leader said Thursday that the United States and Israel had been dealt a "decisive blow" in the Middle East war, after the government reported "no tangible progress" in negotiations on ending the conflict.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei's message, read out by a prayer leader at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of the Islamic republic's founder, came after the US House of Representatives passed a resolution seeking to halt American military action in Iran.
Weeks of talks marked by threats and flare-ups of violence have failed to secure a deal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for global energy flows.
The US and Iran have sent divergent messages, with Tehran insisting on steep conditions for progress, even as President Donald Trump again voiced optimism, telling reporters a deal "could happen... over the weekend".
In his message, Khamenei said his country's enemies, after "facing a decisive blow", were now "experiencing a deeply meaningful and profound humiliation".
He went on to accuse them of seeking to "plant the seeds of doubt, despair, fear, mistrust and division" among the public, calling for unity to "neutralise their sinister plot".
Khamenei has not been seen in public since being wounded in strikes that killed his father and predecessor Ali Khamenei in the opening salvo of the US-Israeli bombing campaign on February 28.