The preliminary agreement between Iran and the US excludes another party to t...
got us here. Israel. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah threat the US Iran negotiations. I'm Scott Simon.
I'm I Sharasko and this is up first from NPR News.
As the US and Iran try to move toward negotiating a lasting deal, Israel and Hezbollah and Lebanon have agreed to renew their ceasefire deal, it doesn't seem to be holding until you're more. We'll also look at how the US Iran agreement is being received here in the US among Republican lawmakers.
And we'll have the latest on the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo where cases of the deadly disease are surging, and aid has been slow to arrive. So stay with us.
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This week on Consider This, listen on the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Iran has once again closed the straight of Hormuz over Israel's continued attacks in Lebanon.
Midley Israeli air strike struck Lebanon today, and that was shortly after Israel and has
below renewed a ceasefire agreement. The fighting could have a direct impact on negotiations between Iran and the U.S. aimed at a lasting deal that would include curtailing Iran's nuclear program. And, because January 1 is in Beirut, Jane, thanks for being with us. Thank you, Scott.
Straight of Hormuz closed again, and the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah is not holding. Which, what's going on? Iran is now saying that it was Washington's job to ensure Israel adhered to the ceasefire in Lebanon. And it's saying that Washington did not fulfill that commitment, and it calls it a violation
of the understanding it had with the United States. Iran further says that calls the entire agreement, including opening the straight of Hormuz into question. That's after Israeli attacks Friday and Saturday. Like those attacks were in the Beko Valley in East, but mostly in southern Lebanon, where
Israeli forces have invaded and are trying to take more territory. His Bola is fighting back. Israeli air strikes on Friday killed at least 55 people, including 12 children, according to state media and local officials. And his Bola attacks on advancing forces inside Lebanon, killed four Israeli soldiers.
So not much of a ceasefire. A preliminary agreement printed in Trump signed Wednesday with Iran explicitly, includes Lebanon in the ceasefire, but as you've reported, it hasn't really been fully enforced.
“Where does that leave the water agreement with Iran?”
Well, as we've seen, Israel believes it's not bound by that wider agreement, which calls for ensuring Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity. In fact, defense minister Israel Katz said the Israeli military is destroying Lebanese border villages, including infrastructure, making it impossible for 200,000 residents to return. And Israeli troops are trying to take a strategic, his Bola position deeper into Lebanon.
His Bola has been attacking Israeli tanks and troops to prevent that advance. Earlier this week, you were in Napahtia, still a center of fighting, much life like there. There is an awful lot of destruction, including downtown in the historic Ottoman era market, hundreds of years old, all of that was heavily damaged. We met one of the town residents, Najib, a little further into the city.
He was returning briefly to see the damage to his apartment. So a part of the building had collapsed, and there was so much rubble, it was difficult to get through the door even. There was the sound of artillery in the distance. You could see smoke rising and inside, all the glass had been blown out, including the balcony
doors. He said, "You see that castle? See what it looks like?" And he says, "The Israelis are still there." And from his balcony, you can see the Beaufort castle.
It's a crusader, a fortress on a strategic hill that's now occupied by Israeli forces.
He said that as long as Israeli forces are that close, he could never move back.
There are now more than 1 million people displaced in Lebanon.
“Some had tried to return, but recent fighting has driven them out again.”
And here's Janeraf in Beirut. Thanks so much. Thank you.
Israel, who went to war with Iran alongside the US, has been highly critical of the framework
for a potential deal between Iran and the US. This has not been received well in the White House, where President Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance used on characteristically tough language this week against the US ally. And here's Ron Elvin joins us, Ron. Thanks for being with us.
Good to be with you, Scott. President Trump used some, what I'll call choice words in an interview this week, talking about Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision to launch strikes on Beirut. Right before the MOU was agreed to, words we cannot play on the air. Let's just say that he questioned the Israeli Prime Minister's judgment.
Then Vice-President J.D. Vance was asked during the interview with the New York Times whether he thought Israel has incentives for the agreement not to go through. And this is what the Vice-President posed to Israeli critics. What is your exact proposal?
And you're a country of nine million people, you can't just kill your way out of solving
every single national security problem that you have. Why this kind of rhetoric? There's so much at stake here, Scott. There's the fragile ceasefire that may or may not be holding for the moment, as we just heard from J.D. Vance.
Then there's the fate of the MOU between US and Iran. There's at least a short-term chance for peace in the region, and then there's the future of the relationship between the US and Israel.
“That's been so important to both for almost 80 years.”
So two months ago, the current war began with coordinated attacks by the US and Israel on Iran, and its ally, Hezbollah, and Lebanon.
Now the Trump administration wants to dial back, make a deal, or at least start to make
one. The World Oil Market can recover and stop endangering the US economy and the world economy, but Israel still sees itself fighting a threat at its doorstep from Hezbollah. When the agreement took sent the ceasefire and opened the state of Hormuz was announced, President Trump hailed it as a success.
But it is being questioned by many critics at home, most notably some members of his own party. What can you tell us? Conservative, hard-line Republicans are saying that this deal seems if it is a deal. It seems to squander the military successes of the past two months in exchange for
a little or nothing beyond a return to where things stood in February when ships were flowing through the straight of Hormuz.
“As for nuclear weapons, Iran is apparently only required to say they won't develop them.”
Ever, and to have more negotiations on the subject. And in exchange, the US has offered to lift sanctions on Iran and make available some of Iran's financial assets that have been frozen and even set up a fund to rebuild what Iran lost in the recent fighting. So some of these Republicans who object have been doubters for a while.
Others say might have been political, let's say rivals of the president at one time. Others had political scores to settle with Trump. But then you have such loyalists as Roger Wicker, Mississippi Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. These people seem genuinely surprised and distressed at this turn of events, a wicker
from one says that the Iranians will use every penny that they get from this new arrangement to further their ultimate goals, which are death to America, death to Israel. And yet, Trump has lumped all these Republican critics together and dismissed them as quote "fools." Then negotiations, the announcement of the agreement all occurred while the president was
in France for the G7. Because the president has so much global responsibility as under unrelenting pressure at all times, a lot of observers noted he looked and sounded tired. The Wednesday news conference was especially striking. Trump was rambling, often off-topic, lacking his usual bravado.
But it was hard not to notice the contrast with French president Emmanuel Macron, who is after all 32 years younger and hosted the summit with grace and assurance. There was a little spat over a picture to be taken with the Italian Prime Minister, George Maloney, a Trump said she'd begged him to take a picture with her. She took strong exception to that, now the Italian Foreign Minister has canceled a trip
to the US. And then Scott at the end of the conference when the G7 leaders posed for their usual class picture after the meeting, a Trump stood as a caucus of one, while the others conferred and engaged with each other.
Pierre's run, Elvade.
Thanks so much. Thank you, Scott.
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that emerged last month is surging
at an unprecedented pace with at least 900 cases in nearly 250 deaths confirmed since then. Health officials there are overwhelmed with cases, and at Livingstone just returned from a reporting trip to the region and joins us, and that thanks for being with us. Thank you.
You spent a week in a tour in the area that's at the heart of the Ebola outbreak. How bad is it? Yeah, to put it bluntly, the situation is dire.
“For lots of people, life is still continuing as before, but because it has to, children”
are going to school, people are going to church on Sundays and so on. But there's also a growing sense of fear. Ebola is spreading across a huge and difficult to access area.
It's also spreading in Bunya, a city of over 1 million people.
There is a massive international response underway, but this outbreak was caught very late. In the hospitals, I visited there was a constant arrival of suspected Ebola patients, and in many cases, because of poor health infrastructure, there's no way to isolate these cases. So they risk infecting others. People are also dying every day.
Health personnel also say they don't have enough PPE. Doctors explain to me that lots of PPE like masks or gloves is single use, so there needs to be a constant supply. And because the disease has spread so widely, nurses in rural areas are coming into daily contact with suspected Ebola patients too, and for the most part, they have nothing.
You have of course, you've been inside Ebola treatment shedters in hospitals.
“However, the health care workers, coping.”
I saw a difference between doctors working in Ebola treatment centers and other health personnel. Only a handful of these treatment centers are operating at the moment, and they've been set up specifically for Ebola patients. The doctors working there are often world specialists, but then there's the other health personnel, the community nurses, or doctors working in small clinics.
They're not trained for this, and yet they're highly exposed. Dozens of health workers have already been infected, and some, unfortunately, have already died. And, of course, as you said, the number of cases is quickly rising, and our health care workers are able to keep up doing contact tracing, isolating people who are infected.
Yeah, it's actually hard to know for sure, because so much of this outbreak is happening out of you. The government says 72% of contacts are being traced, but aid workers are very skeptical of this figure. Some told me off the record that it's probably around 40%.
What this means in simple terms is that the outbreak is out of control. And of course, that means there's a risk of regional spread. Many people are not turning up to hospitals or health centers under dying unnoticed. Health responders just don't know where all the cases are. So, for example, it emerged this week that there have been dozens of suspicious deaths
in a displacement camp in Buña. This camp is right next to the city's airport and the headquarters of NGOs. If it's confirmed to be Ebola, it's spreading right under the nose of the official response. And then isolating suspected patients is also a huge problem. There's no system of triage in many hospitals or clinics, so suspected Ebola patients can
be clumped together with others. If you have concrete example, I visited a hospital of 40 kilometers outside of Buña, where there was only one block of toilets for patients. So if you had Ebola or say appendicitis, you had to use the same facilities. I met you have seen so much these past few days.
“I wonder if there's an image or a moment that stays with you in particular?”
Yes, there is. I mean, I met all of this complexity and darkness. There were moments of joy. And in particular, in Mon Gualu, a gold mining town at the heart of the outbreak, I happened to be in the hospital when two patients were released.
One was a woman who was a member of staff at the hospital who had been infected and other was a three-year-old girl. They both looked a little bit dazed, but the adult woman was smiling and clutching the little girl's hand. A hospital staff sang and danced, celebrating these patients who had survived the disease.
It was a beautiful moment. Well, thank you so much and at Livingstone in Kinshasa, thank you. And you can hear more of Emma's coverage from the Ebola epicenter at NPR next week, including the report from the mining town that's at the heart of the outbreak that's Monday on all things considered.
And that's up first for Saturday, June 28th, 2026, I'm Scott Simon.
And I'm a charasco-day-mistage produced today's podcast, along with Michael Radcliffe and Danny Henson. Deep Harvaz was our editor with help from Melissa Gray, Miguel Masias, Taraniel, and Jacob Finston. Our podcast has been directed by Andy Craig, who worked alongside our technical director,
David Greenberg.
He's got engineering support from Jay-Sizz, Simon Lasslow, Jansson, and ZoVank and
Helvin.
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