Lebanese leaders lash out at Iran and say their country should not be used as a 'bargaining chip'

DIBBINE, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanon’s president and prime minister criticized Iran on Friday for rejecting the latest ceasefire deal between the Lebanese government and Israel, saying their country should not be used by Tehran as a “bargaining chip” in its talks with Washington.

The comments by the country's leaders came as the Israeli military struck multiple parts of southern Lebanon and issued evacuation warnings for nine villages, including one that has sheltered thousands of people displaced by the three-month war. The strikes killed nine people in six locations in southern Lebanon, the state news agency reported.

Addressing a statement issued a day earlier by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said: “It’s not your job to interfere into our country. I reject the statement totally because our people (are) being killed, our houses being destroyed.”

Iran, he told CNN, is “using Lebanon as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with the United States.”

In separate remarks, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called on the Lebanese people to put the interest of their country first, saying that Lebanon "should not remain a battlefield for others.” He added that Iran should stop dealing with southern Lebanon and its people as “a bargaining chip to improve the conditions of its negotiations.”

Iran has demanded that any lasting truce should extend to Lebanon. The Revolutionary Guard statement said “there will be no calm in the region if the Zionists don’t withdraw from occupied Lebanese territories.”

The ceasefire deal has also been rejected by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, which demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. The Lebanese government accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.

The U.S.-brokered agreement that was reached Wednesday in Washington sought to pull Lebanon away from Iran with a statement that any agreement to cease hostilities must be reached directly through Lebanon and Israel “and not through any separate track.”

Aoun said Hezbollah should also understand that negotiations and diplomacy are the only way “to save what’s left” of Lebanon.

Speaking at a meeting at government headquarters in Beirut, Salam said: “Let me be clear in front of you. The people of south Lebanon are not part of the war between Iran and America.”

Meanwhile, the new evacuation warnings forced hundreds of Lebanese families to flee the village of Anqoun and the area of Aarnaya, on the edge of the predominantly Christian community of Maghdoucheh, near the southern port city of Sidon. Elsewhere, people began to return to their homes to survey the aftermath of fighting between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group.

Wide parts of the south have already been devastated by the war. An Associated Press team traveling in the south Friday saw multiple villages in ruins, including Dibbine, near Marjayoun town, from which Israeli troops withdrew a day earlier.

It was the first time Israeli troops pulled out of an area in southern Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began in early March. U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese troops were at an entrance of Dibbine, clearing rubble and opening roads.

The Lebanese army set up barbed wire at one of the entrances, preventing some residents from returning.

At least one family arrived to search the rubble of its home along the road leading to the village, while the owner of a petrol station in Dibbine looked at his destroyed property and called village residents to report on the destruction he saw from behind the barbed wire.

Shrapnel and pieces of missiles were seen in the rubble of homes lining the road into Dibbine. Israeli troops entered the village weeks ago for the first time and were engaged in heavy clashes with Hezbollah fighters in the area. The troops returned this week, before withdrawing Thursday.

The road to Dibbine was dotted with villages entirely emptied of residents and destroyed by Israeli strikes, including Khiam. But no Israeli troops were visible from the road.

Nearby Christian villages were largely untouched, and many of their residents decided to stay. The strategic Beaufort castle, recently captured by Israel, appeared in the distance, with a flag of the Israeli Golani Brigade. Smoke from strikes around the nearby Nabatiyeh city billowed above.

Nearly three hours after Friday’s evacuation warnings were issued by the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson, Israeli warplanes struck the Lebanese villages, including Anqoun. About 2,500 people displaced by the fighting were sheltering in Anqoun, the Lebanese news agency NNA reported.

Israel had warned Lebanese residents against returning to villages in the south, saying the area is still a combat zone.

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a strong ally of Hezbollah who has been acting as a mediator on behalf of the group, echoed the militants' demands for a broad Israeli withdrawal. In his first comments since the agreement was announced Wednesday in Washington, Berri said that he accepts Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the areas south of the Litani River as long as it coincides with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

The river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border with Israel, forms the boundary of a 2006 U.N.-established buffer zone in which Hezbollah is banned. Israeli troops have pushed far past the river into southern Lebanon.

Berri added in a written statement that the ceasefire should be “complete and comprehensive,” without any exceptions for land, sea or air, and “without bulldozing and demolishing everything that exists.” He was referring to wide areas that have been demolished by Israeli troops.

The war in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south since March 2, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a globally important conduit for oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other commodities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.

In Iran-related developments, American forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker linked to the Islamic Republic in the Indian Ocean, the U.S. military said Friday.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command posted on X that the forces boarded the MT Davina, without offering details. U.S. forces around the world have sought to prevent Iran from profiting off its oil and other goods. They have been directed to stop ships tied to Tehran or those suspected of carrying supplies that could help its government.

The U.S. Navy has imposed a blockade of Iran’s ports as part of an effort to force Tehran to open the strait and accept a deal to extend a tenuous ceasefire in the war.

Israeli troops have seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country’s south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation.

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since the war began. The fighting has killed at least 29 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Ben Finley in Washington contributed to this report.

A view of Beaufort Castle, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A Lebanese soldier gestures in front of a Spanish U.N peacekeeper vehicle Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Spanish U.N peacekeepers patrol at an entrance of Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following intense clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Lebanese army soldiers stand in front of a house that was destroyed in the recent clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A bulldozer for the Spanish U.N peacekeeper opens a road in front of a house that was destroyed in the recent clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Lebanese soldiers deploy at a road in front of destroyed houses in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Spanish U.N peacekeepers deploy at a road in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following intense clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People swim on a public beach as smoke, background, rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit the Qlaileh village, seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

An Israeli flag hangs on a destroyed building in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles jury has awarded $176 million to the parents of two young brothers killed in a hit-and-run collision when a California socialite's car struck them in a crosswalk nearly six years ago.

The jury found both Rebecca Grossman and Scott Erickson, a former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, negligent in the deaths of 11-year-old Mark Iskander and 8-year-old Jacob Iskander.

The damages awarded Wednesday were for wrongful death and emotional distress. The trial judge will ultimately determine how much each defendant has to pay.

Court was scheduled to resume Friday as jurors must still decide whether to award punitive damages to the boys' parents, Nancy and Karim Iskander.

Grossman was sentenced in 2024 to serve 15 years to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder, gross vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run driving in a separate criminal trial. She is a co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation and the wife of a prominent burn doctor.

The boys' parents also filed lawsuits in civil court against both Grossman and Erickson, who was driving ahead of her when the Iskander brothers were killed. That trial began in April.

The deadly crash occurred on the evening of Sept. 29, 2020, in Westlake Village, a city on the western edge of Los Angeles County.

Brian Panish, the Iskander family's attorney, argued that Grossman and Erickson were both driving recklessly after drinking margaritas together. The two were dating at a time when Grossman and her husband were separated.

Panish said Grossman was driving 73 mph (117 kph) when her car struck the boys in a crosswalk on a road where the posted speed limit was 45 mph (72 kph).

He said Grossman was following Erickson, who was also speeding and narrowly missed the family.

“This was a totally preventable collision," Panish told the jury in closing arguments Wednesday. “They went out for a walk and they never came home.”

Grossman's attorney, Esther Holm, denied that her client was intoxicated. She said Grossman was distracted when she saw the boys' mother dive out of the way of Erickson's vehicle.

“Ms. Grossman was not driving impaired," Holm told the jury. “She did not see the children, as her attention was diverted by Ms. Iskander.”

Erickson's attorney, Jeff Braun, called the boys' deaths a tragedy but emphasized that the vehicle he was driving "made no contact with the children.”

FILE - Nancy Iskander, left, holding the hand of her husband, Karim, leaves Van Nuys Courthouse June 10, 2024, in Van Nuys, Calif., after attending the sentencing hearing in the murder trial of Rebecca Grossman, who is charged in the deaths of their two sons, Mark, 11, and Jacob, 8. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)