Iran Ceasefire Totters as Lebanon Ceasefire Extends

Here’s a snapshot of the latest Middle East news to bring you up to speed.

• Donald Trump has announced that a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon would be extended by three weeks. Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside the participants in the meeting, said he hoped the two countries’ leaders would meet during the additional three-week cessation of hostilities.

• When he was asked how long he was willing to wait for a long-term peace deal with Iran, he replied: “Don’t rush me”.

• The US president had earlier ordered the US navy to “shoot and kill” small Iranian boats that deploy mines in the strait of Hormuz and claimed that US minesweepers “are clearing the strait right now” amid the standoff over the key waterway. US special forces earlier boarded a stateless oil tanker in the Indian Ocean which the Pentagon claimed was carrying Iranian crude oil, ratcheting up the standoff with Tehran over the strait.

• Trump said the US had “hit about 75% of our targets” in Iran and that a deal had not yet been reached because Iran’s leadership was “in turmoil”.

• Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said there were no “hardliners” or “moderates” in Iran, responding to the Trump claim of internal division in Iran’s leadership. Separately, Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, said Iranian state institutions “continue to act with unity, purpose and discipline”.