Al Jazeera

By Lyndal Rowlands and Danai Nesta Kupemba

    US President Donald Trump says he hopes to host Israeli and Lebanese leaders “in the near future”, after announcing a three-week extension to the fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, which was due to expire on Sunday.

    President Trump said he is under no pressure to end his war with Iran, though time is limited for Tehran. “I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t – The clock is ticking!” Trump wrote on social media.

    A third US aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East. The USS George HW Bush joined the USS Gerald R Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln in a massive buildup of naval firepower.

    Trump gives orders to “shoot and kill” any Iranian boats placing sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz, as the US naval siege of Iran’s ports continues, and officials in Tehran say talks will not resume until the blockade is lifted.

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

Palestinian schoolchildren protest after Israeli settlers block road to their school

    Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank village of Um al-Khair have protested after Israeli settlers set up a barbed wire fence blocking access to their school.

    “Open the road, open the road,” the children chanted in English, according to a video shared by the office of the prime minister of the State of Palestine.

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Slain journalist Amal Khalil remembered for rescuing animals in warzone

    Our colleagues at AJ+ have shared footage showing how Amal Khalil would look after cats and dogs she found as she reported on southern Lebanon before she was killed by Israeli forces.

    Both Iran and the US are keeping up pressure over the Strait of Hormuz and their blockades in the waterway critical for the shipment of global fuel supplies.

    Earlier on Thursday, US forces boarded and seized a vessel in the Indian Ocean transporting Iranian oil.

    In Lebanon, the funeral has taken place for slain Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, who was killed in a targeted Israeli attack in the south of the country.

US missile stockpiles take hit as weapons move from Asia, Europe to Middle East

    US military commanders have expressed concern that shifting long-range precision weapons from the Asia Pacific to the Middle East could leave them exposed elsewhere, according to US media reports.

    The New York Times reports that since the war broke out on February 28, the US has fired an estimated 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles originally held in reserve for potential operations against China.

    Internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials say the depleted stockpiles include more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot interceptor missiles, and Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles.

    To meet demand, the military has been moving ammunition from bases in Asia and Europe, raising questions about readiness for potential threats in those regions.

    The report also highlighted deeper concerns about the military’s over-reliance on expensive missiles and whether the defence industry has the capacity to ramp up production quickly enough.

    The Defense Department has warned it could take years to fully replenish its stockpiles.

Iran likely to outlast US blockade, testing Trump’s patience and domestic politics

    Adam Ereli, former US ambassador to Bahrain, told Al Jazeera’s This is America that while the US blockade of Iranian ports and seizure of vessels transporting Iranian oil “makes sense” as a policy, it may not work as intended due to domestic political considerations in the US.

    “The Iranians have prepared for this, for this eventuality. They have their own plans. They’ve got alternative means of storing their oil or selling their oil,” Ereli told Al Jazeera.

    “Even if they ran out of oil, they have ways to survive a very tough blockade and sanctions regime that, frankly, I think will outlast Trump’s patience and the patience of the American people,” he said.

    “Remember, this isn’t just about moving soldiers and ships and planes around on a map. There’s politics involved here in the United States,” he added.

    “Trump is nothing if not attuned to the political winds. And for that reason, I think that you’ve got this Iran strategy on the one hand that runs up against an electoral strategy on another hand, and therefore, the question is which one is going to give ”

Trump undermining own advantage by continuing Iran blockade

    Trita Parsi, vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, says that Trump has “some leverage, because he doesn’t need a deal as much as the Iranians”.

    But, Parsi added, the US president is undermining his own “signal to the Iranians that he is utterly untrustworthy” by refusing to remove the US blockade on Iran’s ports.

    “As [Trump] admitted, the Iranians did offer to open the strait,” Parsi told Al Jazeera.

    “It was supposed to be reciprocated by the United States by opening the blockade; it would have paved the way for both of them to have a face-saving way to the negotiating table, and Trump deliberately said no to that,” he said.

    He said that when Israel resumes attacks, it would “destroy key energy and electricity facilities” and dismantle Iran’s economic infrastructure.

US offers $10m reward for leader of Iran-linked group in Iraq

    The United States has announced a $10m reward for information that leads to the arrest of the leader of an Iran-aligned “terrorist group” in Iraq.

    Hashim Finyan Rahim al-Saraji is the leader and secretary-general of Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS).

    The statement from the US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice programme said the group was responsible for killing Iraqi civilians and attacking US diplomatic facilities and personnel in Iraq and Syria.

    Those providing information “could be eligible for relocation and a reward”, the State Department said.

Israel’s UN envoy says ceasefire with Lebanon ‘not 100 percent’

    Speaking to US media less than two hours after US President Donald Trump announced a three-week extension of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said that the ceasefire situation was “not 100 percent”.

    “Compare it to what happened before the ceasefire, you know it’s significantly better situation,” Danon said in the televised interview.

    Danon added that Israeli forces “have to retaliate” against Hezbollah sending rockets.

    “Every time we see a threat, we take action,” he said.

    “I think the main question is whether the Lebanese government is capable of enforcing a ceasefire or a peace agreement or actually applying sovereignty over southern Lebanon,” he added.

    Israeli forces, which had invaded southern Lebanon since early March, have remained in place despite an initial 10-day ceasefire agreed earlier this month, with top Israeli officials repeatedly claiming Israel plans to occupy its northern neighbour up to the Litani River – deep inside Lebanese territory.

Lebanon ceasefire ‘difficult’ to hold without Iran, Hezbollah at the table

    We’ve been speaking to Rami Khouri, a distinguished public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, about the extension of the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel.

    Khouri said it will be very “difficult” for the three-week ceasefire extension to hold as “two of the most important actors – Hezbollah and Iran” are not involved, adding that Israel and the US are trying to “force an agreement on Lebanon” that half the Lebanese people don’t want.

    There are so many contradictions, so many weaknesses and vulnerabilities,” Khouri said of the talks and the agreement.

    He described this moment in history as the “struggle for Lebanon”, adding that it cannot be achieved through “diplomatic and political pressure and threats”.

    Hezbollah and Iran should be at the table, but it won’t happen, Khouri said.

    “Israelis don’t want a formal peace between a Lebanon and an Israel that have equal sovereign rights. Israel wants a peace like a so-called peace in Gaza,” he said.

    But he also took an optimistic turn and said peace could “happen within three months” if the US and Israeli’s accept the Arab peace plan offer that’s on the table.

    “There’s no reason these people should all be fighting – except for one, which is the denial of the Palestinians to have their state,” he said.

Iranian leaders react to Trump claims of divisions with ‘unified message’

By Almigdad Alruhaid

Reporting from Tehran, Iran

    Tehran is definitely rejecting the rhetoric from the United States’ president that there is a division inside Iran and among Iranian officials and the government.

    The theme over the past few hours, that we have seen here, is unity, a unified message coming from across different branches and different senior officials, senior figures and diplomats, and also from the military side.

    They are all sending the same message, the same stance, the same position on their conditions to join or not join the next negotiation table in Islamabad.

    One of the strong messages came from Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, saying that there are no hardliners or moderates between Iranians; they are all Iranians. And that there is only one path for Iranians, and highlighting the alignment between the leadership and the Iranian people.

    He also said that he expects Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun to visit the US “over the next couple of weeks”.

US attorney confirms warrants issued for seized oil tankers carrying Iranian oil

    Jeanine Pirro, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, has said that two oil tankers seized by US forces were pursued due to warrants issued by her office.

    As we reported earlier, the US Defense Department said that US forces had boarded “the sanctioned stateless vessel M/T Majestic X transporting oil from Iran, in the Indian Ocean”.

    Pirro, who was appointed to her role by Trump, said that the two ships M/T Majestic and M/T Tifani were both carrying “approximately 1.9 million barrels of Iranian oil” when they were seized.

    “We will continue to relentlessly investigate, track, and pursue these cases, using every lawful authority to hold sanctioned actors and those who support terrorism accountable, and to deny them of any ability to profit from illicit maritime activity,” Pirro said in a statement shared on social media.

    Pirro added that her office has previously “executed some of the nation’s most complex seizure warrants”, naming the US seizures of three oil tankers carrying Venezuelan oil – Skipper, Bella 1 and Veronica.

US military remains ‘locked and loaded’ as they increase firepower in Middle East region

By Alan Fisher

Reporting from Washington, DC, United States

    Nothing publicly suggests new talks are scheduled between the US and Iran, though Trump and the White House say the Iranians are in contact.

    The question for Trump is how long the ceasefire extension lasts. He has responded that he is not in a rush to get a deal.

    But the Iranians don’t have all the time in the world.

    Operation Economic Fury, which includes the naval blockade, is a tool Trump believes is effective in getting Iran to the negotiating table.

    The United States has confirmed a third aircraft carrier has sailed into the region, meaning even more pressure can be put on ships coming in and out of Iranian ports.

    The military also remains locked and loaded, with even more weapons in the region now than when the ceasefire happened.

    Trump would like a deal, but he is not going to sit around waiting forever for talks to start.

‘Fragile’ ceasefire under threat as Israel and Hezbollah exchange blows

By Jack Barton

Reporting from Amman, Jordan

    Over the last 24 hours, we have seen small arms fired between Israel and Hezbollah.

    Hezbollah fired an antitank weapon at Israeli forces via a salvo of rockets. Israel says there were no casualties, but has acknowledged one reservist was injured in a separate drone attack.

    Israel has been carrying out air strikes and says it killed three Hezbollah members who were trying to shoot down one of its drones. We have seen extensive fighting throughout the day, escalating from clashes that began a few days ago.

    The Lebanese military says that within hours of the ceasefire taking place, Israel was already shelling areas inside southern Lebanon.

    Israeli forces have remained in southern Lebanon throughout, destroying villages to create a buffer zone behind what they call the “Yellow Line”.

    Israeli media have reported that Hezbollah’s increased use of drones using fibre-optic cables is complicating things for Israeli forces as these cannot be electronically jammed.

    What we have seen is how fragile the situation is and how easy it is for a ceasefire to begin to unravel.

Israel’s Gaza genocide in numbers

A recap of recent developments

    US President Donald Trump said that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend a temporary ceasefire by three weeks.

    Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel is “prepared to resume the war against Iran” and would bomb it back to “the Stone Age” if given the green light by Washington.

    Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran’s state institutions continue “to act with unity, purpose and discipline” despite Israeli attacks.

    International outcry continues over the Israeli killing of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil.

    The Iran war, including fertiliser shortages caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, could push 30 million people into poverty, UN development chief Alexander De Croo said.

Welcome

    Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, and Israel’s war on Lebanon.

    Stay with us for the latest news and analyses from across the Middle East and beyond.