Iran war updates: Lebanon truce begins as US blockades Iran for deal

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We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a quick recap of the main developments today:

• A 10-day ceasefire has come into effect between Israel and Lebanon. The truce was announced earlier in the day by President Trump.
• The US president said the ceasefire includes Hezbollah, and he also revealed that Israel’s prime minister and Lebanon’s president could meet ⁠in Washington over ⁠the ⁠next week or two.
• Israel continued to pound southern Lebanon in the hours leading up to the start of the ceasefire. The death toll from Israeli attacks in Lebanon rose to 2,196 on Thursday.
• The ceasefire was welcomed by a number of countries in the region, including Iran, Qatar and Jordan.
• President Trump said that the US is “very close” to making a deal with Iran and said another meeting between the two countries could take place this weekend.
• The US leader also said that Iran has agreed it will not have a nuclear weapon and that the agreement that is currently being negotiated “goes beyond 20 years”.
• The US Central Command claimed that American forces turned around 14 vessels in the 72 hours since Washington’s blockade of Iranian ports went into effect.
• The US House of Representatives rejected a Democratic effort to curb Trump’s authority to wage war on Iran.

While speaking with reporters at the White House, US President Donald Trump rebuked the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation yet again for not joining US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

“We spend trillions and trillions of dollars on NATO, and when I ask them to get involved in a much smaller situation, they weren’t there for us,” Trump told reporters. “None of them.”

“We were there [for] Ukraine. When they’ve had problems over the years we were there,” he said. “I don’t think they’d be there for large problems, and therefore, I think they’ve got themselves a problem.”

We have some reactions coming in from some leaders of regional councils in northern Israeli regions, which include the worst-hit areas from the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Moshe Davidovich, head of the Mateh Asher Regional Council, in the western Galilee of northern Israel, said in a statement that the ceasefire and the establishment of a security zone up to the Litani River “is not a diplomatic achievement” but risks further violence.

“The residents of the north are not mere statistics in a show of international public relations,” he added.

Shimon Guetta, head of the Ma’ale Yosef Regional Council, also in northern Israel, rejected outside influence over Israel’s security policy, demanding that any agreement must guarantee “complete disarmament of Hezbollah” and “absolute security” for northern communities, adding that “agreements on paper are meaningless” without clear enforcement.

Amit Sofer, head of the Merom HaGalil municipality in northern Israel, told the CNN broadcaster that the ceasefire is a “worse option” than the status quo. “It is unreasonable for Donald Trump to tie the Lebanese arena to the Iranian arena; by doing so, he condemns northern residents to more years of a constant threat,” he said.

Stock markets have closed for the day in the US, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes both closing at record highs for the second consecutive session.

Markets rallied on the announcement of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, with investors also closely monitoring a possible second meeting between officials from the US and Iran.

Oil prices have continued to climb as global supply buffers continue to dwindle with the key Strait of Hormuz still blockaded.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign and Expatriates Affairs has welcomed the ceasefire announcement by US President Donald Trump, commending the Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and other officials in the negotiations.

In a statement, the ministry reiterated its “firm support” for the Lebanese state in asserting its sovereignty over all its territory, ensuring that arms remain exclusively in the hands of the state, and reactivating its national institutions.

The United Arab Emirates has also welcomed the ceasefire agreement, praising the diplomatic efforts that led to the breakthrough.

In a statement, the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it hoped that the development would represent a positive step towards fostering a supportive environment for regional stability and underscored the importance of continued international coordination to prevent further escalation.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has welcomed the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, expressing hope that the truce will serve as a foundation for permanent stability in the Middle East.

In a statement published on X, he said: “I hope this will pave the way for negotiations towards a long-term solution to the conflict & contribute to ongoing efforts toward a lasting & comprehensive peace in the region.”

“I urge everyone to fully respect the ceasefire and to comply with international law at all times,” he said.

G7 finance ministers say it is “urgent” to limit the global economic costs of a prolonged conflict in the Middle East.

The ministers were meeting with central bank governors in Washington and released a statement following their meeting.

“G7 members reaffirmed the pressing need to move toward a lasting peace,” it said.

The ceasefire is technically in effect, but certainly, the last hour did not look like a de-escalation; in fact, it looked almost like an escalation.

There were dozens of Israeli air strikes across the south of Lebanon in the hour before the ceasefire took effect.

Hezbollah continued to claim attacks on Israeli troops, both inside Lebanon and also across the border. They targeted a settlement where they said there was Israeli military infrastructure.

Minutes into the ceasefire, so let’s see if that holds, if the front goes quiet. Obviously, many people here are hoping for that.

Israel’s military activity today, they announced that they had struck 380 what they described as Hezbollah targets across the country in the last 24 hours, so … it appears to have been both sides getting in as much damage as they possibly can before this pause, which everybody hopes does hold.

There’s been fireworks and celebratory gunfire audible and sporadic bursts across Beirut tonight, down here by the waterfront, where many displaced people are still sleeping on the streets.

People here are nervously waiting to see if it’s safe to start moving back to their homes, whether they try and start doing that tonight, against the advice of Hezbollah and also the Amal Movement, who’ve said that people need to be patient, to see how this actually plays out.

They are asking people to refrain from going home, but speaking to people across Beirut tonight, some have indicated their intention to start doing so, no matter what.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry has welcomed “the announcement of the ceasefire in Lebanon and consider it an initial step toward de-escalation”.

The ministry said it was a “necessity” that the terms of the ceasefire were adhered to, ensuring the “de-escalation and preventing the expansion of the area of tension”.

The statement also said that Qatar was appreciative of President Trump’s “efforts in the mediation that contributed to reaching a ceasefire in Lebanon”.

The Kurdish news platform Rudaw reports that the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), an opposition group based in Koya in the eastern Erbil province of Iraq, came under several drone attacks on Thursday evening.

According to a statement issued by the group and cited by Rudaw, the strikes occurred at approximately 9:10pm local time (18:10 GMT). The PDKI has blamed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for the assault.

The latest strikes bring the total number of attacks against the group’s camp to 110 since the commencement of the US-Israel war on Iran, according to Rudaw’s reporting.

In late March, a government-planned centre in Beirut’s Karantina neighbourhood for people displaced by Israel’s war was cancelled after a public outcry.

A number of politicians and protesters were opposed to setting up the centre, citing a number of reasons, including increased traffic to the area near Beirut’s port and health concerns.

But there were also sectarian motivations with some of Karantina’s Christian population leading objections to housing the displaced, who are predominantly Shia Muslims, citing demographic concerns and using sectarian slogans reminiscent of language used during the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.

A major source of tension is that Israel has targeted displaced Lebanese, leading many to fear that hosting their compatriots may bring increased danger to their own homes and families. There is also extreme polarisation over the war inside Lebanon.

Supporters of Hezbollah, the Shia armed group that has been fighting Israel, say it avoided war for 15 months while Israel repeatedly violated a November 2024 ceasefire, while its critics accuse it of giving Israel an excuse to invade by launching attacks on Israel on March 2, leading to the forced displacement of 1.2 million people.

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