Lebanon was the one front the memorandum was meant to quiet, and it is breaking the deal first. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says Israel violated the Lebanon ceasefire 84 times in two days1; the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed intercepting Hezbollah rockets fired at its troops in the south. On Tuesday 16 June Iran's military command issued a formal threat of retaliation if Israel's southern Lebanon offensive continues2. That threat, already on the record, is the fuse that can detonate the ceasefire before Friday's Geneva ceremony. Israel's Defence Minister says troops stay inside a 25-mile "security zone".
The two sides do not even agree the deal covers Lebanon. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee stated flatly that "Hezbollah is not included in the deal"3; Iran and Pakistan insist it covers all fronts, Lebanon included. JD Vance has said both that the memorandum is "not conditioned on Israel withdrawing from Lebanon" and that it "envisioned a ceasefire that covers both Iran and Lebanon". Those two formulations cannot both hold.
The gap between them hands Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi a ready-made violation claim to carry into Geneva. A ceasefire with no agreed scope is a ceasefire either side can declare broken at the moment it suits them, and Araghchi already holds the 84-violation count as his pretext. Israel's cabinet has separately repudiated the deal outright, so Lebanon is contested both across the front line and from inside Jerusalem's own government.
