Lebanon, Israel agree to three-week ceasefire

Lebanon and Israel agreed to a three-week ceasefire extension for three weeks following talks at the White House overnight, with Lebanon’s Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expected to follow up with another round of talks for a more permanent peace deal. As part of the agreement, the US will “work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah,” US President Donald Trump said after the agreement was reached, without giving further details on what that help could look like.

Meanwhile, the US and Iran don’t seem to have made much progress on their own ceasefire talks, with Trump saying he is seeking the “best deal” with Iran to make it “everlasting.” Trump has also suggested that the progress on an agreement with Iran could be slow-moving because Tehran’s leadership is in disarray — a claim that Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said was part of “the enemy’s media operations.”

Iran and the US are still very much fighting over control of the Strait of Hormuz, with traffic halted earlier this week after Tehran attacked three ships, escorting two of them into Iranian waters. Beyond the strait, US forces attacked at least three Iranian-flagged tankers in Asian waters, signaling that Washington’s naval blockade is active despite its ongoing ceasefire with Tehran. Partly laden with crude, the vessels were rerouted from their locations off the coasts of India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia.

Washington appears to be working on dismantling Iran’s reach in the region in other moves, including reportedly blocking the delivery of USD 500 mn to Iraq as payment for oil sales, the Wall Street Journal reports. The suspended payment — the second since the war began — comes as the US pressures Iraq to “dismantle powerful Iranian-backed militias,” including groups that attacked US facilities in Iraq during the war.