by Ben Whedon
President Donald Trump on Tuesday had harsh words for Israel over its conduct in Lebanon and suggested that the Syrian government may be better suited to handle Hezbollah.
Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in fierce fighting in southern Lebanon and a ceasefire there has become a sticking point in the larger Iran deal. Trump, for his part, criticized Israel over its propensity to cause collateral damage in strikes.
“Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed,” Trump said at the G7 summit. He further criticized a recent Israeli strike in Beirut and applauded Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody,” he added.
“If Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else, he’ll do the job. Syria will do the job,” Trump suggested.
Al-Sharaa took power in Syria in early 2025 after a sweeping offensive from the country’s northwestern Idlib province resulted in the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
According to Bloomberg News, Trump also said he was not “happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah.”
“They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever, and when that happens, it throws a negative light on the big deal, and that’s the deal with Iran,” he said, the outlet reported.
Trump also said he had a “great relationship” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he needs to “be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.”
“Too many people are being killed, and you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah,” the president said, according to Bloomberg News.
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
