Clashes test 'ceasefires' in Lebanon, Gaza, and the Gulf

President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said that France backed the alleged ceasefire in Lebanon after the announcement of an agreement in Washington.

The French head of state told reporters on a visit to Montenegro: "We support the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel and everything that helps restore peace, combat terrorist activities, and fully establish Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"France is, of course, as we have always been, available to move forward along this path. A coordination mechanism has been put in place where the United States and France are working together.

"If the ceasefire is serious, this is the mechanism that must be reactivated, so that we can follow up and verify its implementation."

Israel's Supreme Court has struck down a government ban preventing International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegates from visiting Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, prompting calls on Thursday to resume such visits.

In its judgement issued on Wednesday, the court found that the government had not offered sufficient justification for the blanket ban.

The ICRC welcomed the decision, saying it was "ready to resume our visits to detainees in Israeli places of detention".

"We are continuing our dialogue with the Israeli authorities to resume our work in detention as soon as possible," it said in a statement on Wednesday evening.

The ICRC stressed that access to detainees—including the ability to meet with them privately—constitutes an obligation under international law.

Israel had suspended ICRC visits to security-related detainees, accusing the organisation of failing to secure access to Israeli detainees held at the time in Gaza by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

The ban remained in place even after the last Israeli detainee was released in October 2025 as part of an alleged ceasefire deal. Israel currently has imprisoned more than 9,000 Palestinians, including women and children, in conditions that involve torture and systematic sexual abuse. 

Since then, several human rights organisations, including Israeli ones, have denounced a deterioration in conditions for Palestinian detainees held by Israel, citing cases of mistreatment, denial of medical care and violence.

The Prisoners Club, the main association for prisoners' rights in the Palestinian territories, said the court's ruling would remain ineffective if the visits were not resumed.

"The ruling should not serve as a cover for overlooking the role played by the Israeli judicial system, including the Supreme Court, in providing legal legitimacy for occupation policies and serious violations, as well as contributing to a system of impunity," Abdullah al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, said in a statement on Thursday.

The Israeli media are reporting that the northern parts of Israel, including sites Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting, witnessed drone attacks from Hezbollah.

Additional sirens warning of hostile aircraft infiltration and missile and rocket fire were activated in a series of communities in the Western Galilee, including Shlomi and Betzet, shortly after Netanyahu left the area.

Israeli security officials in the regional councils claimed that three Hezbollah drones had entered Israeli territory.

For nearly a year and a half, Nader Abu Hilal has waited for news of his son.

Each update that reaches the family home in Dura, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, brings fresh anxiety. The latest reports suggest that Azmi Abu Hilal, a 31-year-old lawyer with dwarfism, has lost significant weight, suffers from persistent pain and may be battling a serious illness while held in Israeli detention.

"We want our sons to be free," Nader Abu Hilal, Azmi’s father, tells The New Arab. "We were shocked by the violent manner of his arrest, as special forces and a large contingent of the Israeli army stormed our home, searched its contents, and arrested my son Azmi."

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According to the Israeli press, as part of a plan to overthrow the Iranian regime, the Mossad armed Kurdish militias with weapons confiscated during the genocidal war on Gaza from Hamas and from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The CIA was also involved in the plan to arm the Kurds, but US President Donald Trump ultimately cancelled it under pressure from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Apparently, the Kurds also received assistance in the form of money and vehicles and were armed with light weapons, anti-tank missiles, grenades and mortar shells.

Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's chief, describes the Lebanese government’s negotiations with Israel as "shameless," and the so-called ceasefire deal as amounting to "surrender and defeat".

He described it as a "roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people", stressing that the group's core demands were a complete ceasefire and Israel's withdrawal from the south.

He also warned that Israeli areas across the border will remain under threat as long as the Lebanese people and villages come under attack from the Israeli army.

He also said the group refuses any link between Hezbollah's presence and a ceasefire or an Israeli withdrawal.

President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed a vote in the US House seeking to order the withdrawal of troops from the US-Israel war on Iran, suggesting the "unpatriotic" move disrupted negotiations with Tehran.

"Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted, 4 bad Republicans and all of the Dumocrats, to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran," Trump said in a post on the right-wing social media platform, Truth Social.

"Who would do such an unpatriotic thing. They know where the negotiations stand."

"The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome. They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories," he added. "The four Republicans, that's a whole other story – They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves. MAGA!!!"

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun denounced the killing of a member of the United Nations forces operating in the south, and the injury of a number of his colleagues as a result of the attack that targeted an international forces site near Marjayoun.

He also praised the sacrifices made by UNIFIL in southern Lebanon.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud condemned Iranian attacks on Bahrain and pledged Riyadh's full solidarity with Manama.

Prince Faisal made the remarks in a phone call with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, and discussed the "dangerous regional developments", stressing the need to coordinate efforts to preserve security and stability across the region, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"His fate is in God's hands," said hospital director Mona Abou Zeid, pointing to a middle-aged man who lay in a coma and would likely not survive longer than a week.  

He was unloading a goods lorry when the bomb fell, killing six other civilians instantly. His face was bruised and swollen beyond recognition.  

"But the worst thing," Mona added, "is to see the children like this."

The man was the latest casualty of an Israeli airstrike to arrive at Najdeh Hospital in Nabatieh—but he will not be the last.  

Explosions thundered in the green hills around Nabatieh as Israeli strikes left south Lebanon's second-largest city a ghost town in ruins.  

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Israel had killed at least 11 people and wounded at least 32 in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours as the Israeli military intensified attacks across the besieged coastal enclave.

The Palestinian Health Ministry noted that ambulance and civil defence crews are still unable to reach several victims trapped under rubble or lying injured on roadsides.

Since the so-called "ceasefire" began on October 22025, Israeli attacks killed at least 947 people and wounded 2,935 people. Another 781 bodies have been recovered from the vast debris of the heavily bombed Gaza Strip.

The baseline demand in Lebanon is for Israel to withdraw to positions it held before the start of the US-Israel war on Iran at the end of February, Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force Commander Esmail Qaani said on Thursday, according to state media.

He added that Lebanese fighters would soon see the results of their resistance and said supporting the resistance in Lebanon was the duty of all Muslims. 

Despite a 'ceasefire', an Israeli airstrike killed at least three and others in an Israeli strike on the town of Sohmor, in Lebanon's Bekaa, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.

A separate strike also hit Tell al-Aqareb, north of Sohmor.

Additional raids also hit southern Lebanon’s towns of Haddatha, Tebnine, Haris, Kfar, and Harin.

Lebanon and Israel have agreed to implement a ceasefire, according to a joint statement with the United States, released by the State Department on Wednesday following negotiations in Washington.

The ceasefire is contingent on a complete cessation of fire from Hezbollah and the evacuation of all its operatives from the South Litani Sector, according to the statement. The two sides had agreed last month to a ceasefire, but hostilities had continued.

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In a statement to the press, the Lebanese president Joseph Aoun said that the ceasefire agreed upon in Washington between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations is to go into effect within 24 hours.

He also warned that this was "the last chance" for all parties. 

According to the Israeli press, Hezbollah launched an explosive drone at a vehicle in southern Lebanon carrying the commander of the IDF Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo.

The drone struck nearby, but the Israeli claim there were no casualties.

As a result of recent strikes, protocols for field visits on certain routes in southern Lebanon have been "modified".

A UN peacekeeper in Lebanon died on Thursday from wounds sustained when mortar shells, likely by Israel, hit his position near Marjayoun in southeastern Lebanon late the previous night, the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL said.

UNIFIL, which did not say where the shells originated, said two other peacekeepers were wounded and that it had opened an investigation into the incident.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued a forced evacuation order to residents of southern Lebanon, stating that "fighting is still ongoing against facilities used by Hezbollah. Do not move south of the Zahrani River."

This is the first official forced evacuation order issued by Israel on Lebanese since US President Donald Trump's announcement of a "ceasefire".

Israeli strikes killed at least nine Palestinians, including five family members, in separate attacks in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, health officials said.

Medics said Israeli planes launched strikes on four apartments around the same time before dawn on Thursday, killing at least nine people and wounding 15 others.

One of the strikes killed five people in a single family, including the parents, medics said.

The alleged "ceasefire" brokered by US President Donald Trump has failed to halt Israeli attacks in Gaza and left Israel in control of over half the enclave following years of a genocidal war on the coastal enclave.

Indirect talks on implementing the second phase of the deal, which includes the ⁠group's disarmament and Israeli army withdrawals, are deadlocked.

Some 930 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since ⁠the so-called 'ceasefire' in October 2025.

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir criticised on Thursday a supposed ceasefire deal with Lebanon brokered by Washington, calling it a "serious mistake".

"The ceasefire with Lebanon is a serious mistake, and the pipe dreams of advisers are dragging the prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) to wrong decisions," the minister wrote on X.

Israel and Lebanon agreed Wednesday to implement a ceasefire with conditions, according to a joint statement after US-led talks in Washington. 

Soon after, Israeli airstrikes were reported across the south of Lebanon.

Multiple Israeli military drones are buzzing loudly over the Lebanese capital, Beirut. 

Israel will continue its military operations on the ground in southern Lebanon for the time being, and Lebanese residents forced from their homes by Israel would not be able to return, Defence Minister Israel Katz declared on Thursday.

His comments came a day after Lebanon and Israel said they had agreed to implement a ceasefire during talks in Washington. 

In a statement, Katz said troops would remain in its so-called security zone in southern Lebanon, including in the area of Beaufort Castle, a 900-year-old fortress "captured" by Israel on Saturday.

He said Israel would continue to "dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area". At the same time, Israel had "freedom of action, backed by the United States, to strike in Beirut in response to attacks on Israeli communities and territory."

Lebanon and Israel agreed on Wednesday to a new US-backed ceasefire in Lebanon. They had previously agreed to a cessation of hostilities in April, which was then extended in May, but Israel continued attacking and killing people in the country.

For the first time, this resolution has been successful in the House of Representatives, as four Republicans joined Democrats to pass the resolution in a vote of 215 to 208 in what has been seen as a rebuke of Trump's decision to join Israel in attacking Iran.

The vote marked the fourth time this year that the House of Representatives has voted on a war powers resolution to force Trump to seek congressional backing for his war.

Several people have been wounded in an Israeli drone attack in southern Lebanon, the National News Agency reports.

The strike came just after announcements that Israel's and Lebanon's governments agreed to halt the war after a series of meetings in Washington, DC, mediated by US officials.

It remains unclear whether Hezbollah, which condemned the peace talks, will agree to withdraw from the region south of the Litani River as demanded by Israel.