Al Jazeera

By Brian Osgood and Zaid Sabah

    Diplomatic efforts to end the US-Israel war on Iran remain uncertain, with Tehran saying it will not negotiate under the “shadow of threats”.

    US President Donald Trump says the blockade on Iranian ports will remain until Tehran agrees to a deal.

    Lebanon and Israel will head back to Washington, DC, for another round of talks on Thursday to end hostilities.

    Israel continues to bombard southern Lebanon, wounding six people in an air attack on the town of Qaaqaaiyet El Jisr and demolishing homes in the town of Khiam in violation of a 10-day ceasefire.

    Visit our live tracker for the latest casualty figures from across the region.

Trump again lashes out at US media over coverage of Iran attacks

    The US president has taken to his Truth Social platform to criticise the CNN broadcaster and other outlets for their coverage of the US’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites last year.

    “Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete and total obliteration of the Nuclear Dust sites in Iran. Therefore, digging it out will be a long and difficult process,” Trump wrote.

    “Fake News CNN, and other corrupt Media Networks and Platforms, fail to give our great aviators the credit they deserve – Always trying to demean and belittle – LOSERS!!!”

    This comes hours after he said he was “winning” the war on Iran by “a lot” but the coverage by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post makes it look as if the US is losing the war.

    “The enemy is confused, because they get these same Media ‘reports’,” he wrote. “The Anti-America Fake News Media is rooting for Iran to win, but it’s not going to happen, because I’m in charge!”

Israel ‘quite aware’ that demand to disarm Hezbollah could tip Lebanon into civil war

By Reporting from Ramallah, occupied West Bank and Nour Odeh

    The talks with Lebanon is not a process that the Israeli government really wanted or was excited about.

    In fact, the narrative here – in the political commentary, certainly from the opposition – is that the Israeli prime minister was forced into this, much like he was forced to submit to a ceasefire with Lebanon that was announced by the US president.

    Of course, Israel’s demands are maximalist.

    Israel continues to occupy a big chunk of Lebanese land in the south. It is still methodically and systematically demolishing Lebanese villages. It has even declared a so-called “Yellow Line” that extends into Lebanon’s territorial waters and includes a Lebanese oil and gasfield, known as the Qana field.

    Israel wants to use all of that as leverage to force the Lebanese government to forcefully disarm Hezbollah, because even the Israeli military estimates that no matter how long a military operation they can conduct, that will not result in the disarming of the group.

    Of course, Israel is quite aware that this demand might spiral Lebanon into a civil war. And the commentary is quite candid in Israel about that. Israel doesn’t see a problem with that, because – according to a former commander of the Home Front – civil war in Lebanon would cost the current Lebanese government less than an Israeli military assault.

Palestinian woman killed by Israeli naval fire off Gaza coast

    Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that a Palestinian woman has been killed after being targeted by gunfire from Israeli warships off the northern coast of the Gaza Strip.

    This comes after the Ministry of Health in Gaza said Israeli strikes across the Strip killed five Palestinians on Monday.

Investors in Asia believe the ‘worst of the crisis’ may be over

By Patrick Fok

Reporting from Singapore

    It certainly has been a roller coaster ride, but regional markets are once again holding up, on the back of the news that Iran may enter into peace talks with the US.

    We’re seeing in South Korea, the Kospi advancing by about 2 percent; in Japan, the Nikkei is up by more than 1 percent.

    Oil prices are also easing off the back of that news, having previously jumped because of the weekend’s hostilities. Brent crude is currently trading just under $95 per barrel.

    But for investors, it’s all about what happens next.

    Analysts are saying that a lot of investors are reluctant to take money off the table right now, because if a deal does materialise, then equities could jump higher very quickly indeed.

    So they’re all taking a wait-and-see approach for now.

    We’re still waiting to see whether or not there is going to be some sort of discussion that takes place in Islamabad, with investors expecting that it’s more likely that there will be some sort of preliminary agreement, as opposed to a comprehensive agreement.

    For now, markets are really reacting to shifting narratives from optimism to concern. There is a sense, though, that the worst of the crisis and the energy disruptions that come with it may be over.

Survivors in Lebanon’s Bekaa mourn victims of Israeli attacks, assess damage

    We’ve been speaking to civilians in the eastern Bekaa Valley about the devastation wrought by Israel’s bombardment.

    On the outskirts of the town of Sohmar, Ali Rida was digging through the rubble of his car workshop that was destroyed in an Israeli strike. He said he found the bodies of his landlord’s children – who lived above his workshop – blasted into the street after the attack.

    “The Israeli strike happened at 3:30 in the morning, and there was absolutely no reason for it, but Israel’s known for this; they target civilians and, in some places, children,” Rida said.

    “Here, a woman with her daughter and son were killed. Imagine, they were sitting at home, thinking they were safe.”

    Rida and the neighbours said the children’s father is in hospital, blinded by the blast and with both his legs broken by falling rubble. They say they do not know if he will survive.

    Sohmor’s Mayor Iskandar Barake said more than 140 houses have been damaged or destroyed.

    “Most of the people have returned, but they’re worried about the general situation, and all of them are waiting for the negotiations,” he said.

Trump keeps shifting timeline for ending war on Iran

By Mike Hanna

Reporting from Washington, DC, US

    From the moment this conflict began, President Trump has had shifting timelines about how long this conflict is going to last.

    Initially, he was saying it was a matter of days; then it became a matter of weeks, not more than three weeks; then five weeks. And then, of course, what we’ve had in recent days: that one word – soon.

    “Soon” has been repeated many times by President Trump with reference to when this conflict is going to end, or when President Trump intends it to end.

    So there are these shifting timelines, there is this lack of clarity as to exactly what the status of this conflict is. And given the fact that there are these shifting timelines, one raises the question whether there was any timeline at all from the beginning of this conflict; whether indeed the endgame had been thought through before the conflict began.

So these are questions that many within the American public are asking. Why start a war when you do not know how it’s going to end, and you don’t have an off-ramp in order to end it

    President Trump is now continuing to try to build an off-ramp, insisting that talks will take place, insisting that he knows that these negotiations will be successful. This, despite, once again, all evidence to the contrary.

US ‘pretty far behind’ on its original goals for war on Iran

    We have spoken to Daniel Benaim, a former US deputy assistant secretary for Arabian Peninsula Affairs, about what Trump needs to achieve, diplomatically and militarily, to end the war on Iran.

    Benaim told Al Jazeera that the off-ramps for the war, or the moments when the US could have claimed outright victory, “were probably far earlier, and we didn’t take them”.

    “We’re now in a very complicated military engagement with Iran and a very complicated diplomatic engagement,” he said.

    Benaim said the US has fallen well short of every goal it set out to achieve when it launched the war on Iran.

    “We talked about restraining Iran’s nuclear programme in an authoritative way over a long period of time. Arguably, some of that could have been done without a war,” he said.

    “We talked about addressing Iran’s missile stockpile so that it can’t threaten the region and the world. I think that has happened to some extent, although a lot of those missiles remain, and Iran has found a new way to threaten the region and the World by closing the Strait of Hormuz in a way that wasn’t even really palpably clear before this war.”

    And on the question of toppling the Iranian government, while the US-Israeli strikes have killed key Iranian leaders, “it’s the same regime with different people”, including leaders who “are less amenable”.

    “So, on all of those goals, we’re pretty far behind where we started this war,” Benaim said.

Stocks rebound in early trading in Asia

    MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan is up 0.9 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi has risen 2.1 percent to hit a new record high for the first time since the war on Iran began.

    S&P 500 e-mini futures were up 0.1 percent, while Brent crude slipped 0.4 percent to $95.09 a barrel.

    Japan’s Nikkei tacked on 1.2 percent, while the primary benchmark index for the Australian Securities Exchange, ASX, bucked the trend, slipping 0.3 percent.