The Israeli army claims to have killed 220 Hezbollah members since the ‘ceasefire’.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee has issued a statement saying the army killed 220 Hezbollah fighters since the mid-April “ceasefire” brokered by Washington between Israeli and Lebanese officials.
Over the past week, Israeli forces killed 85 Hezbollah members and hit more than 180 military facilities belonging to the group, according to the statement.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israel has killed more than 2,700 people since March 2, including dozens since the supposed truce began.
We now have more on the reported meeting between Iranian President Pezeshkian and Supreme Leader Khamenei.
The president said the meeting lasted nearly two and a half hours, according to state media outlet IRIB.
“What stood out to me more than any other issue in this meeting was the manner of confrontation, the type of gaze, and the humble and deeply intimate manner of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution; an approach that transformed the atmosphere of the discussion into an environment based on trust, calm, empathy, and direct dialogue,” Pezeshkian said.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public since his appointment in early March. He was reportedly wounded in the February 28 attack by the US and Israel that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has ruled out lifting sanctions on Iran as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains obstructed by its armed forces.
“We ourselves have imposed significant sanctions on Iran. But it is out of the question that any sanction whatsoever be lifted as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked,” Barrot told French broadcaster RTL.
“It cannot be blocked, subjected to tolls, or used as leverage or blackmail.”
France must ensure it never finds itself again in a situation where it’s forced to pay the price for wars it didn’t choose to launch, Barrot said.
“That is why we must focus on … how Europe can rid itself of all these dependencies on hydrocarbons and oil – no longer being dependent on oil, no longer being dependent on digital technologies. In short, no longer being dependent on things that, in one way or another, draw us into conflicts, disasters, and crises in which we are not participants.”
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian says he met recently with new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
The meeting was marked by a “humble and deeply cordial” atmosphere, Pezeshkian was reported as saying by state media.
We will bring you more shortly.
The top US diplomat Marco Rubio is at the Vatican for talks with the first American pope against a backdrop of sharp tensions between the White House and the Holy See.
The US secretary of state’s visit comes after President Trump’s extraordinary criticism of Pope Leo XIV, head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, over his antiwar stance.
The US ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, told reporters this week it would be a “frank conversation” between Rubio and Leo.
Trump last month took to social media to call the pope “WEAK on crime and terrible for foreign policy”.
His remarks came after Leo called for peace in the Middle East after the US and Israel launched the two-month war on Iran. The pope condemned a threat by Trump to destroy Iranian civilisation as “truly unacceptable”.
Emirates Group announced a 3 percent rise in annual profits to $5.7bn despite severe disruptions from the war with flights grounded and Dubai airport repeatedly targeted.
The state-owned entity that includes Emirates, the world’s biggest long-haul carrier, reported record pre-tax profits of $6.6bn and record cash assets of $16.2bn.
March, the last month of the financial year, was “disruptive and challenging”, it said.
“For the first 11 months of 2025-26 the picture across the Group was very positive,” Chairman and CEO Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said in a statement.
“Although we are still operating at a lower passenger capacity than pre-disruption, cargo operations have ramped up to support the movement of essential goods into and through the UAE,” he added.
A French aircraft carrier is sailing south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a possible defensive mission aimed at restoring safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
The Defence Ministry said the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle is en route to the strait.
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are leading a multinational mission towards restoring freedom of navigation, which they say would be entirely defensive and deployed only once the war ends.
The Palestinian group says the killing of Azzam Khalil al-Hayya, son of Hamas political bureau leader Khalil al-Hayya, was an attempt by Israel to “influence the will of the resistance and its political stances”.
Hamas said in a statement that Israel’s “crimes” will not persuade Palestinian negotiators to renounce their principles or the rights of the Palestinian people.
Azzam Khalil al-Hayya died of his injuries today after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood late on Wednesday, a source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera.
Three Palestinians were killed in the Zeitoun neighbourhood as they built a toilet, including a child who was with the elderly men.
Another Palestinian was killed in the Daraj neighbourhood by an Israeli drone. A number of Palestinians have also been injured and transferred to al-Shifa Hospital.
In addition, the son of Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas’s political bureau, died from wounds he sustained in an air strike yesterday that targeted him near Shujayea.
Drones are buzzing overhead, and Palestinians are gripped by fear that the war may resume. Violence has increased over the past couple of days.
Every day, people are being killed and wounded, and there has also been an advance of the so-called “yellow line” in full. So despite the “ceasefire”, Palestinians are being killed daily, and many of the wounded are later dying from their injuries.
Israeli attacks on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh and its outskirts have killed one person and injured several, the National News Agency reports.
An air raid on the al-Maslakh neighbourhood destroyed a residential building, according to the state-run agency, while a drone struck in proximity to the nearby Evangelical School.
Several air strikes hit the area of the school minutes later, damaging several buildings and causing the closure of the main road to Nabatieh al-Fawqa.
Separately, the agency reported warplanes attacked the town of Yater while an Israeli drone hit the road between Khirbet Selm and Qalaouiya.
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