Hezbollah rejects ceasefire with Israel

An already-precarious ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon is now being upended by Hezbollah, which rejected the agreement after not being party to the discussions. The pact was contingent on Hezbollah laying down arms and withdrawing its fighters from southern Lebanon, but even that version of the agreement would have still allowed Israel to have boots on the ground in Lebanon, with Tel Aviv saying it was not planning to withdraw from the country. Iran has also reiterated that a cessation of Israeli violence in Lebanon and the withdrawal of its troops are prerequisites for its own ceasefire with the US and the Gulf.

The fighting in the rest of the region is broadly on pause after Wednesday’s bout of attacks, which saw Iranian drones and missiles hitting Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and US vessels. Kuwait seems to have borne the brunt of that round of strikes — a drone strike on its airport killed one person and injured 60 others. The country briefly halted flights on Wednesday to push through repairs at the airport. Separately, Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry decided to reduce the number of Iranian embassy staff in the country and declare two Iranian diplomats PNGs.

With no end in sight to the tensions, oil-exporting countries are looking for alternative exit routes to the Strait of Hormuz. Adnoc is planning on building a multi-fuel pipeline to hedge against future disruptions to shipping through Hormuz, the Financial Times quotes Executive VP for Sales and Trading Philip Khoury as saying. The pipeline will be able to export refined oil products, including gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel. Iraq is similarly looking to the Ceyhan pipeline, which runs through Kurdistan to Turkey’s Ceyhan Port, with plans to more than triple its crude exports through the pipeline.