On June 26, 2026 (Day 120 of the Iran-Israel-US war, Operation Epic Fury / Friday), the deal’s most dangerous fault line — Lebanon — saw its first concrete diplomatic movement, even as the hardest party rejected it and the Hormuz dispute hardened. THE FRAMEWORK: Israel, Lebanon and the United States signed a US-brokered framework agreement at the State Department, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined by Israel’s ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Lebanon’s ambassador Nada Hamadeh, capping four days of the fifth round of Washington-mediated talks (CNN, Times of Israel, CBC/AP). The State Department text describes a “sequenced process” in which the Lebanese army restores “effective sovereign authority over all Lebanese territory, pending the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups” — a clear reference to Hezbollah — and only then will Israel “progressively redeploy.” It begins with a partial IDF pullback from two “pilot zones” handed to the Lebanese army, overseen by a new US-led “Military Coordination Group for Lebanon” (MCG4L), alongside an “immediate” $100 million US humanitarian donation; Rubio called it “the beginning of the beginning.” WHAT ISRAEL ACTUALLY GIVES UP IS SMALL: Prime Minister Netanyahu said the IDF will leave two areas it “does not need” — one south of the Litani outside the original security zone, and one north of it that Israel “conquered in the last two weeks” — while maintaining the original security zone and roughly a fifth of Lebanon. THE SPIN AND THE REJECTION: Netanyahu framed the deal as “a major blow to Iran,” declaring that Israel, Lebanon and the US are telling Tehran “it is none of your business — you have no role in Lebanon,” and vowing to hold the security zone “until Hezbollah disarms.” Hezbollah flatly rejected it: MP Hassan Fadlallah said the group will not disarm, that Lebanese authorities “will not be able to enforce the agreement … unless they go … to civil war,” and that the deal was an attempt to “derail the Islamabad process” — “whoever shakes hands with the enemy is a criminal.” Lebanon’s ambassador called it the “first step on the road to restoring Lebanese sovereignty,” and President Aoun thanked the Trump administration. THE HORMUZ HARDENING: a day after Iran’s IRGC struck a Singapore-flagged ship, deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz “cannot be guaranteed without coordination with Iran” and that failure to coordinate “may result in the suspension of any designated route,” while Iran reiterated the strait should be governed jointly with Oman per the MOU; Vice President Vance told Tehran to “pick up the phone” if it disagreed on the memorandum, warning “violence will be met with violence,” and Trump called the ship strike a “foolish violation” while signaling no return to hostilities. The UN’s International Maritime Organization kept its seafarer evacuation paused — Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said 115 vessels and about 2,500 seafarers got through before the halt, that he was seeking safety guarantees from Oman, the US and Iran, and could not give a restart timeframe (14 seafarers were killed during the war). LEBANON KEPT BLEEDING: Israel struck near Nabatieh on the holy day of Ashoura, and Doctors Without Borders said the city “resembles a death trap,” with 50 people killed in the province in recent days; Rubio pointedly skipped Israel on his Middle East tour, which some read as a snub of Netanyahu. Net assessment: Day 120 produced the first signed movement on the Lebanon fault line that has threatened the deal since it was struck — a real diplomatic step that puts a US-led mechanism and a partial pullback on paper — but the actual withdrawal is minimal, Israel keeps most of what it holds, and Hezbollah’s rejection of the disarmament-first core means the framework’s decisive test is whether it can be implemented at all without the civil war its opponents are threatening.