Dubai: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he has authorised direct negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible,” as a tentative ceasefire in the Iran war staggered under the weight of Israel’s bombardment of Beirut.
Netanyahu said he gave the order in response to requests from Lebanon and that talks would focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between the neighbouring countries. He welcomed a call by Lebanon’s prime minister to demilitarise Beirut.
There was no immediate response from Lebanon.
The ceasefire was also hampered by Tehran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and uncertainty over whether planned peace talks can find common ground.
Iran and the US – which both declared victory after the ceasefire announcement – appeared to apply pressure. Semiofficial news agencies in Iran suggested forces have mined the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for oil that Tehran has closed. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, warned that US forces would hit Iran harder than before if it did not fulfil the agreement.
And there was disagreement over whether the ceasefire deal included a pause in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel Wednesday pounded Beirut with airstrikes, resulting in the deadliest day in Lebanon since the war began Febuary 28.
Questions also remained over what will happen to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium at the heart of tensions, how and when normal traffic will resume through the strait, and what happens to Iran’s ability to launch future missile attacks and support armed proxies in the region.
Despite the fragile and disputed nature of the ceasefire, it appeared to have halted weeks of missile and drone attacks by Iran on its Gulf Arab neighbours and Israel, with no new launches reported Thursday. There were no reports of strikes by the US or Israel targeting Iran.
Israel vows to continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, warned Thursday that continued Israeli attacks on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon would bring “explicit costs and STRONG responses” in a social media post.
Qalibaf has been discussed as a possible negotiator who could meet US Vice President JD Vance this weekend in Islamabad. The White House has said Vance would lead the delegation for talks starting Saturday.
Iran said Israel was violating the ceasefire agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump have said it was not.
Netanyahu said Israel will continue striking Hezbollah “with force, precision and determination.”
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 203 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded Wednesday in Israeli strikes in central Beirut and other areas of Lebanon that Israel said targeted Hezbollah, which joined the war in support of Tehran.
Israel said Thursday it killed an aide to Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, Ali Yusuf Harshi. Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A New York-based think tank warned that the ceasefire ” hovers on the verge of collapse.”
“Even if Lebanon was formally outside the deal, the scale of Israel’s strikes was likely to be viewed as escalatory,” the Soufan Centre wrote in an analysis. “Israel’s strikes can be understood both as an effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its proxies and as a response to being allegedly sidelined in the original ceasefire discussions.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli strike overnight killed at least seven people in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military did not immediately acknowledge the strike.
Oil prices remain high amid uncertainty over the strait
Semiofficial news agencies in Iran published a chart Thursday suggesting the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard put sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz during the war – a message that may be intended to pressure the United States.
The chart, released by the ISNA news agency and Tasnim, showed a large circle marked “danger zone” in Farsi over the route ships take through the strait, through which 20 per cent of all traded oil and natural gas once passed.
Only a trickle of ships have transited since the war began after several were attacked, and Iran threatened to hit any that it deemed connected to the US or Israel. Ships appeared to continue to avoid the strait even after the ceasefire.
The chart suggested that ships travel through waters closer to Iran’s mainland near Larak Island, a route that some ships were observed taking during the war. It was dated from Febuary 28 until April 9, and it was unclear if the Guard had cleared any mines since then.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, told the BBC that his country will allow ships to pass through the strait in accordance with “international norms and international law” once the United States ends its “aggression” in the Middle East and Israel stops attacking Lebanon.
The head of the United Arab Emirates’ major oil company, Sultan al-Jaber, said some 230 ships loaded with oil were waiting to get through the strait and must be allowed “to navigate this corridor without condition.”
The strait’s de facto closure has caused oil prices to skyrocket – affecting the cost of gasoline, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East. Oil prices fell Wednesday on news of the ceasefire but climbed again as uncertainty over the deal grew.
The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was around USD 98 Thursday, up about 35 per cent since the war began.
Points to address in talks include whether Iran will be allowed to formalise a system of charging ships to use the strait. That would upend decades of free transit through what has been treated as an international waterway.
The fate of Iran’s enriched uranium remains a question
The fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs – which the US and Israel sought to eliminate in going to war – also remained unclear. The US insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to build them. Iran insists its program is peaceful.
Trump said Wednesday that the US would work with Iran to remove the uranium, buried in last year’s US and Israeli strikes, though Iran did not confirm that. In one version of the ceasefire deal that Iran published, it said it would be allowed to continue enrichment.
The chief of Iran’s nuclear agency, Mohammad Eslami, said Thursday that protecting Tehran’s right to enrich uranium is “necessary” for any ceasefire talks.
Trump warned that US warships and troops will remain around Iran “until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with.
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