The Albany Gazette - Trump says war with Iran could end in 'two weeks, maybe three'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said meanwhile that the joint campaign against what he called Iran's "terror regime" had "changed the face of the Middle East."

The US and Israeli leaders' comments came after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the president of the European Council that Tehran had the "necessary will" to end the war provided its enemies guaranteed it would not flare up again.

In Lebanon, Israel kept pounding against Iran-backed Hezbollah as it mourned four Israeli soldiers killed in the country's south.

The Lebanese health ministry said early Wednesday that seven people were killed in Israeli strikes in south Beirut and a nearby area, with Israel's military saying a senior Hezbollah commander and another senior "terrorist" had been struck.

The day prior, Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed at least eight people, one of them a paramedic, the health ministry said, with the total death toll in the country now over 1,200, with over a million displaced.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that Israel would occupy a swathe of southern Lebanon even after the conflict ends, and that "all the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished."

US stocks meanwhile surged on hopes that a resolution to the month-long war may be in sight, as Brent oil futures finished down 3.2 percent at $103.97 per barrel.

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said the United States would be leaving Iran "very soon," perhaps within "two weeks, maybe three."

"But we're finishing the job," he insisted.

"We want to knock out every single thing they have," Trump said, before adding that "it's possible that we'll make a deal before that."

Trump has zigzagged previously on whether Washington plans to escalate the war that has roiled the world economy -- possibly by deploying American ground forces -- or try to end it through negotiations with Tehran.

- 'Go get your own oil!' -

As for the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blockaded by Iran and through which one-fifth of global oil normally passes, Trump said France, China and other countries that seek passage through the waterway will have to "fend for themselves."

"I think it'll be very safe, actually, but we have nothing to do with that," he said. "What happens with the strait we're not going to have anything to do with."

In a Truth Social post earlier Tuesday, Trump lashed out at NATO allies and other countries that have refused to help the United States secure the strait.

"The U.S.A. won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us," he wrote. "Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!"

Netanyahu, in a televised statement on the eve of the Jewish Passover holidays, said Israeli forces "will continue to crush the terror regime" in Tehran.

"We had to act, and we acted," he said. "We have changed the face of the Middle East."

The comment by Iran's Pezeshkian on the will to end the war echoed Tehran's counterproposal to a 15-point US plan last week to finish the conflict, in which Iran demanded a mechanism guaranteeing that Israel and the United States would not return to arms.

The United States has not said who it is speaking with in Iran, which has denied it is in talks.

Trump and Netanyahu launched the war on February 28, killing Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and setting off a wave of retaliatory attacks by Tehran across the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera that he still receives messages from US envoy Steve Witkoff, "directly, as before, and this does not mean that we are in negotiations."

Iran's Revolutionary Guards also threatened to retaliate against leading US tech firms such as Google, Meta and Apple from Wednesday if more Iranian leaders were assassinated.

The Guards charged that 18 companies, including Intel, Tesla and Palantir, were complicit in previous killings and warned they "should expect the destruction of their relevant units in exchange for every assassination in Iran."

- 'Darkness and weight' -

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, speaking to reporters early Tuesday after he visited US troops in the Middle East, vowed that "the upcoming days will be decisive. Iran knows that, and there's almost nothing they can militarily do about it."

Trump had threatened on Monday that if Iran didn't agree to a deal, US forces would "obliterate" all of its oil wells, its main Kharg Island export terminal, and possibly water desalination plants.

On Tuesday, heavy strikes hit the central city of Isfahan and Tehran.

Iranian media reported that two steel complexes in the country had been hit.

Iranian state media also reported damage to a Shia religious centre in Zanjan, while the government said airstrikes had hit a plant making cancer drugs and anaesthetics, claims AFP could not independently verify.

Tehran residents spoke of trying to cling to some routine.

"When I make it to a cafe table, even for a few minutes, I can almost believe the world hasn't ended," dental assistant Fatemeh, 27, told AFP in Paris via a messaging app.

"And then I go back home, back to the reality of living through war, with all its darkness and weight."

burs/cl/des/mlm

(P.Clark--TAG)