Here are the highlights of the past few hours:
The Hezbollah launches rockets on Israel. Believing to have “respected the ceasefire while the enemy did not,” the Lebanese movement “targeted the area of Manara” on the other side of the border with Israel, “with a barrage of rockets at 02:30 on Thursday” local time, as stated in a statement by Hezbollah, which had not claimed any attacks against Israel since the announcement between the United States and Iran.
The warning from the UN Secretary-General. Israeli strikes on Lebanon threaten the two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran, said the spokesperson for Antonio Guterres. “Continuing military activity in Lebanon poses a serious danger to the ceasefire and efforts for lasting and comprehensive peace in the region,” the spokesperson for Antonio Guterres affirmed in a statement, reiterating calls for an immediate end to hostilities.
A “credible and sustainable” ceasefire must include Lebanon, says Macron. The French president insisted to his American and Iranian counterparts, Donald Trump and Massoud Pezeshkian, on the need to extend the ceasefire to Lebanon as a “necessary condition” for it to be “credible and sustainable.”
The Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday resulted in 182 deaths and 890 injuries. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam declared a national day of mourning on Thursday and intends, according to his office, to “mobilize all of Lebanon’s political and diplomatic resources to stop the Israeli killing machine.”
JD Vance puts pressure on Tehran. The American Vice President, who is set to lead the American delegation to Pakistan on Saturday for discussions with Iran, stated that it is up to the Iranian leaders to decide if the ceasefire should fail because of Lebanon. “If Iran wants this negotiation to fail because of a conflict in which they are getting trampled in Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them, and which the United States has never said was part of the ceasefire, that’s their choice. We think it would be foolish, but it’s their choice,” he said at the end of a visit to Hungary. This ceasefire in Lebanon is one of the “essential conditions” for the truce with the United States, responded Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian, according to the Isna agency.
