The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they unfold.

White House says Trump to ‘address the nation’ about Iran war on Wednesday night in US

The White House announces that US President Donald Trump will give an “address the nation” on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. eastern time to provide an update on the war in Iran.

Trump: No deal needed to end the war, Iran won’t be able to obtain a nuke ‘for years’

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump says Iran doesn’t have to agree to a deal for the US to end its military operation in the country.

“No, they don’t have to make a deal,” Trump says in response to the question in the Oval Office.

“When we feel that they are… put into the stone ages and won’t be able to come up with a nuclear weapon, then we’ll leave whether we have a deal or not,” Trump says. “It’s irrelevant now.”

It’s unclear if the US unilaterally ceases fire that Iran would follow suit.

Trump has claimed that the US already obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in strikes last year and said earlier Tuesday that he isn’t focused on Tehran’s stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium, so it’s unclear what else Trump is looking to accomplish militarily.

“It’s possible that we’ll have a deal because they want to make a deal more than I want to make a deal,” Trump adds.

“But in a fairly short period of time, we’ll be finished, and they will not be able to do a nuclear weapon for years,” he continues.

“Maybe in a long time from now, [they’ll be] able to do a nuclear weapon, you’ll have a president [who] will be like me, and he will go there and knock the hell out of them again,” Trump says, acknowledging that the ongoing war with Iran may not be definitive.

Just three weeks ago, Trump had made a nearly opposite statement, saying that he wanted to “make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”

IDF says Beirut strikes targeted a top Hezbollah commander and ‘another senior terrorist’

The military says that it carried out two separate attacks on “senior terrorists” in the Beirut area following Lebanese media reports of Israeli strikes around Lebanon’s capital.

The attacks targeted a senior Hezbollah commander and “another senior terrorist,” according to an IDF statement, which provides no further details.

Trump says US will be ‘leaving’ Iran ‘very soon,’ insists regime change was never a war aim

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says the United States will probably wrap up the Iran war in two or three weeks — an admission that the war will likely extend beyond the White House’s four-to-six week timeline.

Speaking to reporters in the White House, Trump first says that the US will be “leaving” Iran “very soon,” insisting that gasoline prices will subsequently “tumble down” as well.

After a reporter notes that Americans are feeling the financial squeeze at the gas pump, Trump declares they’re also “feeling a lot safer” because Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon.

Trump claims the “detour” from improving the US economy was necessary in order to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb, something he says he already prevented in last year’s strikes against Tehran’s nuclear sites.

As for the Strait of Hormuz, Trump says other countries who want to get their oil through the key waterway will have to “fend for themselves,” acknowledging that Iran could drop mines or direct machine gun and RPG fire at ships.

“I think it’ll be very safe, but we have nothing to do with that,” Trump says of the strait, which Iran has shuttered in response to the US and Israeli attacks.

Trump asserts the US has done its part by taking out dozens of Iran’s “radicalized lunatic” leaders.

He also reiterates his claim that the US has enacted “regime change” in Iran, even though the Islamic Republic is still standing. Still, he insists that the new leadership is “much more rational.”

Trump then says regime change wasn’t even his goal to begin with, even though he urged Iranians to take over the government once the bombing stops in the speech he gave upon launching the war.

He insists that he only had one war aim: Ensuring Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

His aides have listed at least four other goals, though those too have ranged from the destruction of Iran’s missile program, the destruction of its navy, the destruction of its air force and the cessation of its support for proxies

Pressed for a more specific timeline for when the war might end, Trump responds, “I think week two or three weeks.”

“Within maybe two weeks — maybe a couple of days longer,” Trump adds later on.

Trump has a history of providing two-week timelines in a variety of policy fields that he hasn’t typically stuck with.

“We want to knock out every single thing they have now, [But] it’s possible that we’ll make a deal before that,” Trump adds.

He says he’d like to hit some additional bridges in Iran, predicting that it will take 15 to 20 years to rebuild what has been hit in the war.

Lebanon reports Israeli airstrike targeting car on major road outside Beirut

An Israeli airstrike hit a car on a major road south of Beirut, state media reports.

“The correspondent of the National News Agency reported that a car on the Khalde highway was targeted by more than one missile fired from a hostile Israeli drone,” it says, adding that emergency services are headed to the site.

Israel’s UN envoy: Hezbollah to blame for killing of 3 UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon

U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon says Israel now blames Hezbollah for all three of the recent peacekeeper deaths in southern Lebanon, citing explosive devices Monday near Bani Ayan and the shelling of a UN peacekeeper position Saturday.

He provides no evidence, and a UN spokesman says the investigation is ongoing. The three Indonesian peacekeepers were killed as Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in fighting.

Late on Tuesday, Israel’s military said its troops were not present in the southern Lebanon area where an explosion killed two UNIFIL peacekeepers on Monday. It also said no explosive device had been placed in the area by Israeli soldiers.

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