From left: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Vice President Vance, President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Mouawad and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michelle Issa listen to questions from the media at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
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Brandon Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Israel’s military said Friday it struck several Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon after the Iran-backed militant group opened fire on Israel, a day after President Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend their ceasefire by three weeks.
The extension was announced at the White House on Thursday, where ambassadors from both countries met for high-level talks. Hezbollah was not involved in the talks.
But the ceasefire appeared fragile from the beginning. Hezbollah’s latest rocket attack in northern Israel came after an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday killed Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil while she was reporting in southern Lebanon. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Khalil’s death makes her the eighth journalist killed by Israel in Lebanon in the past two months.
According to the Lebanese government, the conflict in Lebanon has killed approximately 2,300 people and displaced approximately 1.2 million.
The Lebanon ceasefire is also linked to broader US efforts to extend a separate ceasefire with Iran. Iran has insisted that fighting in Lebanon will remain on hold to allow peace talks with the United States to continue.
Earlier this week, Trump said he was extending the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely, just hours before it was set to expire.
Iran rejected the extension as “meaningless” and said the ongoing US naval blockade of Iranian ports violates the agreement. Iran negotiators say they will not return to the negotiating table until the blockade is lifted.
Tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil shipments, have also increased in recent days. The US military said on Thursday it seized a tanker carrying oil from Iran in the Indian Ocean, a day after Iran took control of two commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump said social media He ordered the Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” laying mines in strategic waterways. He said the US would triple the level of mine detection in the strait.
Here are the latest updates on the 56th day of conflict in the Middle East:
Strait of Hormuz Murder of journalist Pope Leo drone attacks
Trump says he is in no hurry to end war as Hormuz crisis deepens
A boy walks past a man with a fishing net as ships are anchored near the shoreline in Bandar Abbas, the Iranian port city and capital of Hormozgan province, on the shore of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
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President Trump said Thursday he is in no rush to reach a deal to end the US-Israel-led war with Iran, even as tensions rise in the Strait of Hormuz.
“I don’t want to rush. I want to take my time,” Trump told reporters. He said he was prepared to wait for the “best agreement” to end the war.
Trump also rejected the idea that he would use nuclear weapons against Iran.
“Why would I use a nuclear weapon where we have destroyed them without it, in a very conventional way?” Trump said. “Nuclear weapons should never be allowed to be used by anyone.”
Trump’s comments came as he ordered the US Navy to “shoot down and kill any boat” that tries to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a post on social media.
a washington post report The publication this week, which NPR has not independently verified, cites a Pentagon assessment shared with Congress that says it could take up to six months to completely clear the mines. Trump disputed this assessment, saying that American minesweepers were already clearing the waterway.
This threat alone has had a tremendous impact on global shipping. Some ships linked to Iran have attempted to proceed through the strait, but others are staying away after Iran fired on three ships and seized two others earlier this week. About 20,000 sailors have also been stranded on their ships since the war began.
“There are a large number of tanker shipowners who are keeping their vessels away from the Middle East,” Basil Karatza, head of maritime consultancy Karatza Marine Advisors, told NPR.
The disruption goes beyond oil. Helium, fertilizers and aluminium, all vital elements for industry and farming, have been held at bay, causing global shortages and increasing costs.
Human rights groups demand investigation into Lebanese journalist’s death
Press freedom groups are calling for an international investigation into the death of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike while reporting in southern Lebanon earlier this week.
Lebanese officials said Khalil and another journalist took refuge in a house after a nearby vehicle was targeted, but then that building was also attacked. Medics said they were able to save a wounded journalist, but before they could save Khalil they came under fire and were forced to retreat. Later she died after getting buried under the debris. The Israeli military said it was responding to an “imminent threat” and was reviewing the incident.
Relatives and friends of veteran daily newspaper correspondent Amal Khalil Al Akhbar Mourning was held Thursday at her home in the village of Bissariyah, which was killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon.
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Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images
Committee to Protect Journalists Told Israel’s failure Allowing the medical team to reach Khalil in time “could have constituted a war crime.”
“Journalists are citizens and protected under international law,” CPJ’s Jody Ginsberg said in a statement. “Israel’s blatant disregard for such norms – and the international community’s failure to hold them accountable – is abhorrent.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam accused Israel of targeting journalists.
“Israel’s targeting of media workers while performing their professional duties in the South is no longer an isolated incident, but has become an established practice that we condemn and reject, as does all international law and conventions,” Salaam wrote in a post on social media.
at least eight journalists have been killed In Lebanon by Israel since the beginning of the conflict, according to CPJ.
Pope Leo urges US and Iran to return to talks
Pope Leo XIV on Friday called on the United States and Iran to return to the negotiating table, calling for renewed talks to end the war.
Pope Leo XIV, at the end of his 11-day pastoral visit to Africa, speaks to reporters aboard the papal flight from Malabo to Rome on Thursday.
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Andrew Medichini/AFP via Getty Images
Speaking to reporters on the papal plane after a visit to Africa, Leo urged leaders to embrace a “culture of peace”.
He called negotiations between Iran and the United States “complex”, but urged all parties to remain committed to dialogue.
He said he was carrying a photo of a young Muslim Lebanese boy killed in Israel’s recent attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The same child was photographed holding a sign welcoming the Pope during his visit to Lebanon last year.
“When conflicts arise,” Leo said, “the question is how to promote the values we believe in without causing the death of so many innocents.”
Officials say drones hit Iranian-Kurdish opposition positions in Iraq
The Kurdistan Freedom Party, known as PAK, said multiple drones attacked one of its bases in Iraq’s Erbil province late Thursday, wounding three fighters.
Iran and Iran-backed Iraqi militias have continued to attack Iranian Kurdish opposition positions during a ceasefire between the US and Iran that began on April 8. Kurdish government officials say at least five people have been killed in those attacks since then.
A police officer holds a flag in Valiyasar Square beneath a mural of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, on Thursday.
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President Trump earlier this week extended the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely, but Iranian officials have said the US blockade of Iranian ports is a violation of the armistice.
The PAK, which was trained with Iraqi Kurdish fighters by US forces to fight terrorist group ISIS, called on Trump to protect the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, where the US has bases.
Drone attacks were also reported in Kuwait, where the country’s Defense Ministry said “two sites at its northern land border centers” were targeted by “two fiber-optic wire-guided explosive drones” from Iraq.
In a social media post, officials said the drone caused physical damage, but no injuries.
Kat Lonsdorf in Beirut, Lebanon, Jane Arraf in Amman, Jordan, Ruth Sherlock and Rebecca Roseman in London and Jackie Northam contributed reporting to this story.
