Despite 'ceasefire', Israel pounds south Lebanon

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Friday urged Iran to stop treating his country, where Israel and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah are at war, as a "bargaining chip" in its negotiations with Washington regarding the US-Israeli war on Iran.

"If I may address a word to Iran, it is this: have mercy on our south, stop treating it and its people as merely a bargaining chip to improve the terms of your negotiations," Salam told a press conference for a UN aid appeal for Lebanon.

Ireland on Friday barred Israel's national security minister and finance minister from entering the country over the genocidal war on Gaza.

Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan "has instructed immigration officers to refuse entry to Itamar Ben-Gvir - Minister for National Security of Israel, and Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance of Israel - should they seek to enter the state," said a justice ministry statement sent to AFP.

The German foreign ministry warned on Friday against travel to Bahrain and Kuwait.

It especially discouraged travel to Bahrain, it said in a statement, citing a still "highly volatile" security situation in the region.

"A further deterioration in the security situation, including significant restrictions on air travel, cannot be ruled out," it said.

Earlier, the US Indo-Pacific Command said US forces intercepted the sanctioned stateless vessel M/T DAVINA in the Indian Ocean overnight.

Iran's football squad, whose participation in the 2026 World Cup remains uncertain, have handed their passports to the US embassy in Turkey for visas, the head of their Football Federation said on Friday.

Mehdi Taj said Iran were following instructions from world football's governing body.

"Yesterday, I had discussions with FIFA regarding the US visas," Taj said. "We were told to submit all passports to the US embassy in Ankara."

The Iranian team is due to fly from Turkey to Spain on Saturday before travelling on to their base camp in Mexico, which has issued visas to the squad.

"We are waiting to see what happens today or, at the latest, tomorrow, because our national team needs to receive these passports and travel with them to Tijuana," said Taj.

Taj said the Iranian Football Federation said had "raised certain points and requests, in such a way that FIFA was told that if they (the Americans) do not issue visas for the players, some members of our technical staff, and other sections of our delegation, we may make other decisions."

"My assessment is that all visas will be issued in full, and there most likely will not be any problem in this regard," he added.

The Iranians relocated their World Cup base, which initially was planned to be in Tucson, Arizona, to the northwestern Mexican border city of Tijuana.

All three of their group matches are in the United States.

They open with two games in Los Angeles, against against New Zealand on 15 June and Belgium on 21 June, and play Egypt on 27 June in Seattle.

US forces overnight conducted an interdiction of the sanctioned stateless vessel M/T DAVINA in the Indian Ocean, the Indo-Pacific Command said on Friday.

"We will continue global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate," it wrote in an X post.

Washington has imposed a blockade on Iran's trade by sea while Iran has fired on ships to prevent them sailing through the Strait of Hormuz waterway at the entrance to the Gulf. 

Lebanon's judiciary has charged two activists in absentia with inciting Israeli attacks against the Iran-backed Hezbollah and sentenced them to 15 years in prison, a judicial official told AFP on Friday.

It is the harshest sentence yet against activists expressing support for Israel, which has officially been at war with Lebanon for decades.

The official, who requested anonymity, said the two individuals, Ahmed Yassine and Joumana Gebara, both living outside Lebanon, were charged with "collaborating with Israel and inciting it to continue its military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon" by the military tribunal in a trial that began in November 2024.

Yassine, a Paris-based university professor, is accused of "inciting the Israeli army to bomb the historic Baalbek Citadel by disseminating information claiming that the citadel housed Hezbollah weapons depots".

Yassine also has a YouTube channel where he shares political commentary to more than 140,000 subscribers.

Gebara is accused of "praising Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee and thanking him for the bombings of Lebanon, as well as calling for normalisation with Israel" during the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, the official said.

Lebanon has no formal ties with Israel, and any contact is punishable by imprisonment.

It has previously arrested people accused of spying for Israel.

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since 2 March.

Hezbollah will withdraw from south Lebanon if Israel pulls back and comprehensive truce reached, remarked Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri. 

The latest round of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel erupted at the start of March, two days after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Hezbollah said its actions were in support of Tehran.

"This war will end only when it ends in Lebanon as well," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Lebanese TV station Al Mayadeen late on Thursday.

"The end of the war on Lebanon must be accompanied by the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they have occupied," he said.

The comments came after Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected a US-brokered pact between Israel and the Lebanese government to halt the fighting in Lebanon because the deal didn't provide for an Israeli withdrawal and Hezbollah hadn't been party to the negotiations.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that "standing against the world's greatest power, equipped with nuclear weapons, for 40 days is no joke," and that "the world has realised the true power of the Iranian nation."

Speaking in comments carried by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Araghchi also issued a direct warning to regional states. "We warned regional states that US bases used for any aggression against Iran are legitimate targets," he said.

The Iranian foreign minister also said, "We are committed to fostering sustainable, constructive ties with Saudi Arabia."

Hezbollah announced three attacks on Israeli military positions in southern Lebanon over the past day.

In statements, the group reported a rocket barrage against Israeli soldiers on the outskirts of Wadi al-Hujayr, an area east of the coastal town of Tyre near the Litani River.

It later claimed two separate artillery attack against the Israeli army near the town of Haddatha.

While Iran seeks to end the war, deadlocked talks and the renewed threat of conflict could push Tehran to deploy previously untapped leverage: the Bab al-Mandab; writes Ariya Farahmand.

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The US-Israeli war on Iran is pushing millions of people closer to hunger, as rising fuel and transport costs drive up food prices while funding shortfalls force aid agencies to scale back assistance, the UN World Food Programme said on Friday.

Joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February triggered a regional conflict stretching across the Gulf and into Lebanon, disrupting key shipping routes, including the Strait of Hormuz, forcing vessels to reroute and sharply constraining global energy flows and supply chains.

In March, the WFP forecast as many as 45 million people could fall into acute food insecurity if oil prices remained around $100 per barrel through June. That scenario is now unfolding, the agency said, with benchmark crude prices staying above that level since early March.

Households in Afghanistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka are among the most seriously affected and face mounting pressure due to higher fuel costs, food price spikes, income losses and disrupted trade. 

The war on Iran comes amid a deep funding shortfall for aid agencies. The WFP said it expected to serve 1.5 million fewer people globally in 2026, and an extra 9 million fewer if the situation persists for six months. 

The UN on Friday more than doubled its aid appeal for Lebanon as the country reels from Israel's war, saying nearly $640 million was needed over six months.

"The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon is severe and deteriorating," the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a revised appeal for the country.

"Repeated displacements, insufficient shelter capacity and limited prospects for safe return are deepening vulnerability," it said, warning that "affected people are rapidly exhausting their coping capacities, and essential services are under increasing strain".

The UN had appealed for $308 million in March to support a massive emergency response led by Lebanon's government through to the end of May.

On Friday it said that another $331 million would be needed through the end of August.

The Israeli military announced more evacuation orders for the residents of  Sarafand, Tuffahta, Babliyeh, Qaqaiyat al-Sanoubar, Marwaniyeh, and Siksikieh in southern Lebanon

In a post on X, the Israeli army's Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, ordered residents of the villages and towns to leave immediately and move north of the Zahrani River.

Earlier, the Israeli military issued forced displacement warnings for Aarnaya, Aanqoun and Kfar Kila, three villages and towns in southern Lebanon.

Israel secretly deployed select military and intelligence units in Azerbaijan during the war with Iran, as part of a network of covert sites across the Middle East, to facilitate the execution of operations against the Islamic Republic.

According to CNN, citing four sources involved in the details, the forces operated from several locations in southern Azerbaijan, near Iran's northern border.

In addition, commando units were also stationed there, carrying out missions related to intelligence gathering and drone operations. The locations in Azerbaijan were among numerous secret military sites and bases in several countries, including Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Somaliland.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty discussed, with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the developments taking place in the region, most notably the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The official spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tamim Khallaf, said that the calls discussed the latest developments in the US-Iranian negotiations and the diplomatic efforts made to reach a settlement.

Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has met with Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) conference of interior ministers in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to discuss bilateral relations, border security, and regional stability.

The two ministers exchanged views on reducing tensions, enhancing border management, and addressing shared internal security challenges.

"Both interior ministers emphasised the need to continue diplomatic efforts consistently for sustainable peace in the region," the Pakistani Ministry of Interior said on X

Palestinian media in Gaza report that an 18-year-old was killed and 16 other people were wounded in an Israeli airstrike earlier on a tent sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis in southern parts of the coastal enclave earlier this morning.

Lebanon's civil defence announced that at least 7 people have been killed by heavy Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Tyre. 

The Israeli occupation army warned the residents of the villages of Arnaya, Anqoun and Kafrfila in southern Lebanon of the need to leave their homes immediately and move away from these villages for a distance of no less than a thousand meters towards open areas.

"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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US Democratic congresswoman from Michigan Rashida Tlaib said she will continue to fight to limit Trump's support of Israel's "unjust invasion" of Lebanon, despite her resolution receiving support from less than a quarter of House members.

"I am grateful to the 90 members of Congress who joined me and my sister-in-service Delia Ramirez in voting to put an end to US support for these war crimes and mass atrocities," Tlaib said in a statement.

Tlaib added that "far too many of my colleagues continue to fail to recognise the humanity of the Lebanese people. This fight is not over. The Lebanese people continue to be subjected to violent forced displacement, illegal military occupation, and deadly US-funded bombs."

An alleged drone attack has forced the suspension of oil loading at Oman's Mina al Fahal terminal after an explosion, Reuters reports, citing two people familiar with the matter.

It is not clear when the alleged drone attack took place.

Traders who are speaking on condition of anonymity tell Bloomberg that scheduled oil loadings have been pushed back by several days due to the blast

Hezbollah has rejected the results of the US-brokered ceasefire deal between Lebanon and Israel, vowing to confront Israeli aggression if it continues.

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