Trump says Israel-Lebanon ceasefire extended by three weeks

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Iran will have to cut funding for Hezbollah, Trump said Thursday, after Lebanon and Israel's ambassadors to Washington held talks at the White House.

The United States will not exclude Iran from the World Cup tournament it is hosting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday, after an official mused about replacing war-battered Iran with Italy, which did not qualify.

"The problem with Iran, it would be not their athletes. It would be some of the other people that we want to bring with them," Rubio told reporters, denying Washington had asked the Iranian team not to come.

Trump says he wants to have a three-way meeting with the Israeli and Lebanese leaders "soon". He said that he sees a "great chance" of a peace deal happening between the two countries this year.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday announced that an Israel-Lebanon ceasefire would be extended by three weeks, despite sporadic fighting on the ground.

"The Ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will be extended by THREE WEEKS," Trump said in a social media posting as he met envoys of Israel and Lebanon.

Hezbollah said it fired rockets at northern Israel Thursday night. Israeli media said the missiles targeted the small town border of Shtula.

The militant group said it came in response to repeated Israeli violations of a 10-day truce, which is set to expire on Sunday if it is not extended.

The rocket fire also came as Lebanon and Israel held talks in Washington.

Trump says he won't use a nuclear weapon in his war on Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Iran might have loaded up their weaponry "a little bit" during the two-week ceasefire, but added that the U.S. military could knock that out in about one day.

"Don't rush me," Trump told reporters at the White House when he was asked how long was he willing to wait for a long-term peace deal with Iran.

"Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone, their anti-aircraft is gone ...maybe they loaded up a little bit during the two-week hiatus, but we'll knock that out about one day, if they did," Trump added.

"I want to make the best deal. I could make a deal right now ... but I don't want to do that. I want to have it everlasting," Trump said.

The Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the US arrived for a second round of talks in Washington on Thursday. The talks will take place at the White House and will be attended by President Donald Trump.

The US ambassadors to Lebanon and Israel will also be present at the meeting.

Italian UN peacekeepers have replaced the statue of Jesus Christ vandalised by Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday.

A photo showing the desecration of a crucifix smashed in the village of Debel drew widespread condemnation this week. The two soldiers involved have been removed from combat duty and placed in detention for 30 days.

"I would like to thank Commander Diodato Abagnara and the entire Italian UNIFIL contingent for deciding to donate a new crucifix to the Lebanese village of Debel," Meloni said in a statement.

"The images of the statue being handed over to the community and placed in the very spot where the statue destroyed a few days ago by an IDF soldier once stood are heart-warming and send a powerful message of hope, dialogue and peace," she added.

📌بعد أيامٍ قليلة من تحطيم جندي إسرائيلي لتمثال السيد المسيح في قرية دبل جنوب لبنان... الكتيبة الإيطالية في اليونيفل تحضر تمثالاً جديداً إلى القرية#نكمن_في_التفاصيل pic.twitter.com/iytnV1zOM7

— اندبندنت عربية (@IndyArabia) April 23, 2026

The USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, the US military said Thursday, bringing the number of the massive American warships operating in the region to three.

The Bush was sailing "in the Indian Ocean in the US Central Command area of responsibility, April 23," the military command responsible for the Middle East said in a post on X that included an image of the carrier with its deck packed with warplanes.

A second carrier - the USS Gerald R. Ford - was operating in the Red Sea on Thursday, while a third - the USS Abraham Lincoln - is also in the region, according to social media posts by CENTCOM.

Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in a post on X, warns Iranian public of "enemy" media campaign targeting unity in the country.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that the United States is under no pressure to end the war with Iran, but "the clock is ticking" for Tehran, as disruption from the conflict batters the world economy.

"I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn't -- The clock is ticking!" Trump said on social media, adding that Iran's military was destroyed and "their leaders are no longer with us, the Blockade is airtight and strong and, from there, it only gets worse."

An Israeli security source told AFP on Thursday that the country was not carrying out airstrikes in Iran, following reports in Iranian state media of blasts over the capital Tehran.

"Israel is not attacking in Iran," the source said on condition of anonymity.

Earlier on Thursday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel was "prepared to resume the war against Iran", adding that his country was awaiting a green light from the United States to return Iran to "the Stone Age".

Iran's air defences intercepted two drones which entered the capital's airspace Thursday evening, Iranian media reported.

The IRNA state news agency had said the "sound of air defence firing" was heard in western Tehran, while the Mehr news agency reported that the systems were activated in several parts of the capital to counter "hostile targets", without elaborating further.

A drone attack targeted an Iranian Kurdish opposition camp west of Erbil in northern Iraq, security sources have said.

Israel's Channel 12 reported that Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf resigned from his country's negotiating team holding talks with the US over differences with Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The New Arab could not immediately verify this.

Talks have stalled between Tehran and Washington.

The United Nations said Thursday it was "working on" maintaining a presence in Lebanon once the mandate for its UNIFIL peacekeeping force expires at the end of the year.

"In terms of the post-UNIFIL, we're currently in the process of working on these options," said Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, with the Lebanese government "very clear that they would want to keep a UN presence".

Lacroix told a press conference in Geneva that any future uniformed UN presence in southern Lebanon would have to be decided upon by the Security Council in New York.

The Security Council has requested options for a possible post-UNIFIL United Nations presence, and "we must present these recommendations... before June 1", he said.

Lacroix did not elaborate on the various options but said any eventual presence would probably be smaller than UNIFIL.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it killed individuals in the town of Aainata in southern Lebanon, claiming that they were armed and posing what it described as "an immediate threat."

It was not immediately clear whether the incident was related to strikes reported earlier in nearby areas by Lebanon's health ministry.

An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed three people on Thursday, the Lebanese health ministry said, the latest attack despite a 10-day truce in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

In a statement, the ministry said that "an Israeli airstrike on the Shoukine road in the Nabatieh district", more than 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Israel, killed three people while a strike on the village of Yater wounded two people, including a child.

The attacks come hours ahead of the second meeting between Lebanon and Israel's US ambassadors in Washington, where Beirut is expected to ask for a ceasefire extension.

(AFP and TNA staff)

Defence minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that Israel is awaiting a green light from the United States to return Iran to "the Stone Age".

"The IDF is ready both defensively and offensively, and the targets have been marked," Katz said in a video statement.

"We are awaiting a green light from the United States - first and foremost to complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty... and additionally to return Iran to the Dark Age and the Stone Age by destroying key energy and electricity facilities and dismantling its national economic infrastructure."

(AFP)

Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei was seriously wounded in the US-Israeli airstrike that killed his father and predecessor Ali Khamenei but is mentally sharp, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Citing several Iranian officials which it did not name, the Times said Mojtaba Khamenei had "at least for now" delegated decision-making to generals in the Revolutionary Guards.

Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since succeeding his father and only issued written statements, creating speculation over his condition and if he is still alive.

Although Mojtaba Khamenei was "gravely wounded (in the 28 February airstrike), he is mentally sharp and engaged," said the NYT.

"One leg was operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic. He had surgery on one hand and is slowly regaining function. His face and lips have been burned severely, making it difficult for him to speak," it cited the officials as saying, adding that "eventually, he will need plastic surgery."

Lebanon's prime minister has ruled out an agreement with Israel that does not involve the full withdrawal of its forces, in an interview published ahead of a second round of Lebanon-Israel talks in Washington today.

Speaking to The Washington Post, Nawaf Salam said his government is urging the Trump administration to pressure Israel into ending their occupation of swathes of the country's south.

Israel has forcibly displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians living south of the Litani River and declared a so-called buffer zone stretching deep into Lebanese territory. Officials have vowed to prevent people from returning to their homes as Israeli forces set about destroying entire villages near the Israeli border.

"We cannot live with a so-called buffer zone," Salam told the newspaper, "an Israeli presence where Lebanese displaced people are not allowed to return, where destroyed villages and towns cannot be rebuilt."

Israel ceded to US pressure and agreed to a 10-day ceasefire with Hezbollah set to expire on Sunday, though has continued to launch airstrikes including against medics and journalists.

Beirut is now relying on the US president to extend the truce and restrain the Israeli military, which has killed more than 2,400 people since the beginning of March.

"We are entering these negotiations convened by the US convinced that the US is the party that can have leverage over Israel," Salam said. "Their role was critical in reaching the ceasefire, and we hope they will continue exercising their leverage over Israel."

Israeli airstrikes killed at least four Palestinians in Gaza on Thursday, while soldiers shot and killed a 15-year-old child during an army raid in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said.

One person was killed in a strike in southern Gaza's Khan Younis in which several others were wounded, local medics said. 

Three others, including a rescue worker, were killed in a separate strike in Maghazi, a Palestinian refugee camp in the Deir al Balah area in central Gaza, health officials said.

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza in violation of October's ceasefire agreement. More than 970 Palestinians have been killed and another 2,235 injured in Israeli fire during the alleged ceasefire.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

France will send nearly 10 tons of humanitarian aid to Lebanon on Thursday, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.

"A new delivery of nearly 10 tons is set to take off today. This new package of humanitarian aid responds concretely to the needs of the displaced Lebanese population," deputy foreign ministry spokesperson Glenn Salic told reporters, adding that the delivery included tents, cooking kits, lamps and other material. 

(Reuters)

US President Donald Trump said Thursday he had ordered the US military to destroy Iranian vessels that attempt to place mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

"I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be ... that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

He also claimed that US minesweepers are operating in the strait to clear mines reportedly laid by Iran.

The Pentagon earlier issued a vehement denial of a US news report that claimed it could take six months to clear mines in the strait. 

The US military said on Thursday it had seized another oil tanker linked to Iran, as it continues to escalate tensions with Tehran over its blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

American naval forces have seized several tankers in the Indian Ocean since announcing a blockade on Iranian ports last week.

Dozens of tankers linked to the Islamic republic have been able to evade the US blockade in recent days, enabling Iran to continue to sell oil in defiance of American sanctions.

The blockade is at the centre of the ongoing standoff over a new round of peace talks. Iranian officials have ruled out attending new negotiations in Pakistan unless the US lifts the blockade, while the Trump administration is refusing to relent until a peace deal is agreed and the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.

(AP and TNA staff)

The son of the former Shah appealed to Western countries to join the war against Iran and criticised the decision of the German government not to meet him during his visit to Berlin on Thursday.

Reza Pahlavi, whose father was deposed in the revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power in 1979, accused Europe of standing by and allowing the Tehran government to continue the bloody repression of protests that killed thousands at the end of last year.

"The question is not whether change will come. Change is on the way," he told a press conference in Berlin. "The real question is how many Iranians will lose their lives while the community of Western democracies continue to merely watch."

Demonstrations by both supporters and opponents were held in central Berlin and a person was detained after Pahlavi, who made an appearance, was spattered with some form of red liquid.

The global economy is facing ever more tangible strains from the energy shock triggered by the Iran war as factories grapple with soaring production costs and activity weakens even in services sectors, major surveys showed on Thursday.

While much of the world's economy has shown resilience in the face of the worst disruption to energy supplies in modern times, the knock-on effects of the near-two-month conflict are starting to push up inflation while raising alarm bells about food supplies and prompting downgrades to economic growth.

This week has already seen a string of downbeat business and consumer morale readings and cautious outlooks from top listed companies.

The closely watched set of S&P Global surveys of purchasing managers released on Thursday showed worse to come.

They pointed to the 21 countries of the euro zone as among the hardest hit, with the preliminary reading of its headline index for the region falling from 50.7 in March to 48.6 in April - a sub-50 tally that indicates a shrinkage in activity.

The input price index surged to 76.9 from 68.9, showing how euro zone factories are facing a jump in their production costs. The index covering the bloc's dominant services industry meanwhile sank to 47.4 from 50.2, well below a poll by news agency Reuters estimate of 49.8.

British defence minister John Healey and his French counterpart Catherine Vautrin said they were confident that real progress could be made on the key Strait of Hormuz, as the two countries hosted a meeting with military planners on the issue.

(Reuters)

More than 30 million people will be pushed back into poverty by the impacts of the Iran war including disruptions to fuel and fertiliser supplies just as farmers are planting crops, UN development chief Alexander De Croo said on Thursday.

Fertiliser shortages - worsened by the blocking of cargo vessels through the Strait of Hormuz - have already lowered agricultural productivity, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) told Reuters.

That would likely hit crop yields later this year, the former Belgian prime minister added.

"Food insecurity will be at its peak level in a few months - and there is not much that you can do about it," he said, also listing other fallouts of the crisis including energy shortages and falling remittances.

"Even if the war would stop tomorrow, those effects, you already have them, and they will be pushing back more than 30 million people into poverty," he said.

Much of the world's fertilizer is produced in the Middle East, and one-third of global supplies passes through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran and the United States are jostling for control.

(Reuters)

Lebanon's president and prime minister accused Israel on Thursday of a war crime, after an airstrike killed a Lebanese journalist in the country's south, where Israeli forces occupy several areas.

Rescuers and the reporter's employer on Wednesday confirmed the death of Amal Khalil, a 42-year-old journalist who worked for the Lebanese daily Al-Akbar.

The civil defence agency said she was killed in a strike on a house in the village of al-Tiril.

"Israel deliberately targets journalists in order to conceal the truth about its crimes against Lebanon," said President Joseph Aoun, in a statement denouncing "war crimes."

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam wrote on X that "targeting journalists and obstructing access for rescue teams constitutes a war crime," adding that his government would take the attack to international bodies.

A 10-day ceasefire has been in effect in Lebanon since Friday, pausing the war between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah that has left more than 2,400 dead in Lebanon.

(AFP)

The Pentagon blasted as cherry picking and false on Thursday a news report saying that the department assessed it could take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Pentagon shared the six-month estimate during a classified briefing for the members of the House Armed Services Committee, citing three unidentified officials familiar with the discussion.

Iran has vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as long as the United States blockades its ports, with the blocked waterway sharply driving up oil and gas prices and disrupting the global economy.

Asked about the report, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said "the media cherry picking leaked information, much of which is false, from a classified, closed briefing is dishonest journalism."

"One assessment does not mean the assessment is plausible, and a six-month closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an impossibility and completely unacceptable to the Secretary," Parnell told AFP on Thursday.

(AFP)

About 10.7 million barrels of Iranian crude exports crossed through the Strait of Hormuz and exited the area blockaded by the US Navy between 13 and 21 April, data analytics firm Vortexa said.

The shipments transited on six crude carriers that had their AIS data switched off.

A US blockade of Iranian ports came into effect on 13 April but "is not necessarily implemented close to Iranian ports nor within the Strait of Hormuz," Vortexa said.

Vortexa recorded 35 total transits through the US blockade from 13 and 22 April, involving Iran-linked or sanctioned vessels for inbound and outbound journeys.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

A senior Iranian parliament official said on Thursday that Tehran has received the first revenue from tolls it imposed on the strategic Strait of Hormuz in its war with the United States and Israel.

"The first revenue received from the Strait of Hormuz tolls was deposited into the Central Bank account," said deputy speaker of parliament Hamidreza Hajibabaei, according to Tasnim news agency.

Other Iranian media carried the same statement, without elaborating.

(AFP)

Israel and Lebanon will hold a new round of talks in Washington on Thursday, during which Beirut plans to request a one-month extension of a ceasefire due to expire within days.

Israel stated ahead of the talks that it has no "serious disagreements" with Lebanon, calling on it to "work together" against the pro-Iran Hezbollah, which is notably absent from and opposed to the negotiations.

The two countries, officially at war for decades, held a meeting in Washington on 14 April, the first of its kind since 1993, in an attempt to put an end to the more than six-week war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The United States announced a 10-day truce shortly after the first meeting, and it is due to expire on Sunday.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 2,454 people and displaced one million since the start of the war, according to Lebanese authorities.

(AFP)

A Pentagon assessment said it could take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines, which could keep oil prices high, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Iran has all but blocked the vital waterway since the start of a war with the United States and Israel, sharply driving up oil and gas prices and disrupting the global economy.

The strait - through which one-fifth of the world's oil and gas passes in peacetime - has remained largely closed during a shaky ceasefire, with the US imposing its own blockade.

Even if hostilities end and the blockade lifts, it could take months to clear the waterway of mines, according to a Pentagon assessment, the Washington Post reported citing officials close to the discussion.

The assessment added that it was unlikely such an operation would begin before the end of the war.

The six-month estimate was shared with members of the House Armed Services Committee during a classified briefing, the Post reported.

Lawmakers were told that Iran may have placed 20 or more mines in and around the strait, some floated remotely using GPS technology which makes them harder to detect, according to the report.

(AFP)

Iran hanged a man on Thursday after he was convicted of membership in a banned opposition group and collaborating with Israel, the judiciary said.

"Sultan-Ali Shirzadi-Fakhr was hanged early this morning for membership in the terrorist group" of the People's Mujahedin Organisation (MEK) and "collaboration with the Israeli regime's spy service," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.

He was also convicted of a capital offence that in Persian means waging war against God, accused of taking part in operations hostile to the Islamic Republic, Mizan said.

The execution is the latest in recent weeks during the war with Israel and the United States, in which authorities have carried out multiple executions of people linked to pre-war protests or affiliated with the MEK.

(AFP and TNA staff)

Iran and the US are continuing to dig in their heels in the ongoing standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, an issue which threatens to torpedo Pakistan's efforts to broker a long-term peace between the arch-foes.

Iranian leaders are refusing to re-open the strategic waterway to international shipping as long as the Trump administration maintains its blockade on Iranian ports.

The US has ruled out any easing of the blockade and further ratcheted up tensions this week by seizing several Iranian tankers in the Indian Ocean.

"Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is not possible amid a blatant violation of the ceasefire," said Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf - who led Tehran's delegation in the first round of talks in Islamabad.

The country's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Tehran is willing to return to talks but said the US "breach of commitments, blockade and threats are main obstacles to genuine negotiations".