JD Vance Slams Israeli Critics of Iran Deal, Calls Trump Israel's 'Only Ally'

US Vice-President JD Vance has lashed out at Israeli critics of the Iran deal, saying US President Donald Trump is Israel's only ally, in a sharp rebuke that referenced the billions in American defence aid the country receives.

It comes as Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Mr Trump signed the deal "out of desperation" and signalled that upcoming talks over Iran's nuclear program — the US president's stated reason for starting the war — would not be easy.

"If the American side wants to be too demanding, we will not accept it," he said in a written message.

Mr Vance has defended the agreement reached this week to end the war with Iran that critics in the US and Israel have slammed for failing to curb Iran's missile program and providing no clear path to dismantling its nuclear facilities, while constraining Israel in its war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

The vice-president, asked at a White House news briefing about a report that Benjamin Netanyahu was fuming over the agreement, said he had not heard such comments from the Israeli prime minister but criticised members of the Israeli leader's cabinet, who he said have attacked the deal and Mr Trump.

"My message to them would be twofold. Number one: Donald J Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time," Mr Vance said.

He said he would also remind those cabinet members that two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected Israel "have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars".

The United States provides Israel with roughly $US4 billion ($5.7b) in military assistance a year, but the two countries are negotiating a new aid agreement.

"The problem for Israel is not Donald J Trump and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in," Mr Vance said.

Mr Netanyahu's office and Israel's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has harshly rebuked the US-Iran deal and insisted Israeli troops would remain in Lebanon.

Mr Vance criticised Mr Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a New York Times interview released earlier on Thursday, local time.

"I find this whole freak-out in Israel a little bit odd because I think that it comes from a place of mistrust, and I think that America has earned the trust of that region of the world."

Mr Ben-Gvir responded to Mr Vance's remarks on X, saying, "This is the proposal … To deal with the Nazis of the 21st century, just as the United States dealt with the Nazis of the 20th century."

Mr Trump, in a social media post after Mr Vance's remarks on Thursday, said he encouraged everyone in the Middle East to maintain their commitment to allowing negotiations to take place.

"We expect a complete Ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel," Mr Trump wrote.

About 12.5 million barrels of crude oil sailed through the Strait of Hormuz overnight, Mr Vance said, hours after the US signed the ceasefire deal with Iran.

Markets responded quickly to the news. Benchmark Brent crude futures prices fell by another 2 per cent to below $US78 a barrel, the lowest since the fighting began on February 28.

But shippers say it will still take time for transit across the strait to return to pre-war levels, with a need to ensure safe access and clear mines.

In Lebanon, where more than 1 million people are displaced by the fighting, Israeli forces launched fresh air strikes early on Thursday, local time, raising doubt about how far Mr Trump will go to force his wartime allies to halt an offensive he has now pledged to end.

Israel, which launched an invasion of Lebanon in March and has since seized a large swathe of the south in pursuit of Hezbollah militants who opened fire across the border in support of Iran, was excluded from the negotiations.

Iran has always said any peace deal must also cover Lebanon. In an apparent major concession to Iran, the memorandum signed by Mr Trump explicitly calls for the "permanent termination" of the war in Lebanon and for its "territorial integrity and sovereignty" to be ensured.

With Lebanon among the peace effort's most delicate issues, Mr Trump in recent days has become openly critical of his ally's operations there, accusing Israel of unnecessarily destroying entire buildings to hit Hezbollah fighters.

Israel has said it has no intention of withdrawing from Lebanon, whatever Mr Trump negotiates. It released a new map on Thursday showing an expanded southern area occupied by its troops, which it describes as a buffer zone.

Mr Vance told reporters one goal of the deal with Iran was to allow the Lebanese authorities to police the south of the country.

"What we want to see is the Lebanese government, the elected representatives of the people of Lebanon, who can police southern Lebanon, so that Hezbollah has not taken over the country, the Israelis are not threatened, and then consequently, the Israelis are not attacking southern Lebanon or Beirut either," he said.

Two Israeli officials, including a senior official close to Mr Netanyahu, told Reuters Israel was holding negotiations with the United States to keep Israeli troops in Lebanon.

The senior official described those talks with Washington as "stubborn" and said Israel would not back down. The other official said the outcome would depend on whether Mr Trump "decides to force the issue" by threatening repercussions on Israel.

While fighting in Lebanon tamped down at the start of this week when Mr Trump first announced the deal had been reached, it has ticked up again over the past few days, and continued on Thursday morning after Mr Trump's signature.

Lebanese state news agency NNA said three people were killed in Israeli air strikes on the southern Lebanese towns of Kfartebnit and Zebdine on Thursday. Reuters reporters heard an Israeli drone flying low over Beirut and its southern suburbs.

"Iran and the Americans are done. Fine. In Lebanon, it's not over yet," said Mohammed Doghman, a man displaced from the southern city of Nabatieh to Beirut, who was sitting outside his tent on Thursday, squinting hard at his phone to read the news.

"They should give us a final answer: has the war ended for good, or will we return to it again?"

In Qlailieh, in southern Lebanon near the port of Tyre, a few displaced residents had ventured back to survey the ruins of their homes, flattened into piles of concrete rubble that many compared to Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu has boasted for years of a particularly close relationship with Mr Trump, which ultimately yielded the joint decision to wage war on Iran this year.

But Mr Trump's apparent shift over Lebanon has abruptly given rise to one of the biggest rifts in US-Israeli relations in decades.

"Soon, Israel may be forced to choose: Either keep up the military pressure and lose Trump's diplomatic support, or stay on his good side — but only by ending, or scaling back, the conflict that many see as the country's most urgent fight," the Times of Israel wrote on Thursday.

When Mr Trump launched the war nearly four months ago, he said he aimed to destroy Iran's nuclear program, end its ability to strike its neighbours, prevent it from supporting allied militants in the region and make it possible for Iranians to topple their hardline leaders.

Though he initially demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender", Mr Trump ultimately signed the agreement with none of those objectives met.

US officials say the upcoming negotiations could still yield a strong agreement on Iran's nuclear program, but its critics, including some hawks in its own party, say Iran is in a stronger position now than before the war, having withstood a superpower attack, exerted control of the strait and gained valuable waivers to financial sanctions.

Mr Vance, who will represent the US at a formal ceremony in Switzerland on Friday to confirm the interim accord, said the US expected Tehran would not have missiles that can "broadly threaten the entire world" as part of the deal agreed with Washington.

He said Thursday marked the start of the 60-day negotiation period to reach a final settlement to the war, which Mr Trump launched in February alongside Mr Netanyahu.