War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

The US Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, says Trump remains determined to finalise an agreement with Iran today, despite what he described as difficult negotiations, Al Jazeera reports.

Speaking on ABC’s This Week, Waltz said, without providing evidence, that Iranian negotiators have struggled to receive clear guidance from the supreme leader and are “not always on the same page” internally.

Still, he said Trump and the US negotiating team remain confident that a deal can be completed.

US President Donald Trump has said Israeli strikes on Beirut “should not have happened” as he vowed a regional peace deal was at hand, though he did not confirm reports it would be signed during the day, AFP reports.

“We are very close to a deal that will bring peace to the region, including to Lebanon, and all sides should stand down,” Trump said on social media.

“This could be the beginning of a long and beautiful peace — Let’s not blow it!”

Barack Obama says it is unrealistic to expect that any deal between US President Donald Trump and Tehran would mark a “significant improvement” over his own nuclear pact 11 years ago, AFP reports.

In interview excerpts on ABC News talk show “This Week,” the former president also suggested it was better to negotiate a deal that falls short of all of Washington’s requirements in order to avoid an outright war.

“It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place,” Obama said, referring to 2015’s landmark pact that Trump abandoned.

Obama said his own deal “had worked for a long stretch of time before…the United States pulled out of it.”

Obama said the troubled progress of a new US-Iran deal is a reminder that Washington can not “just bully our way or bomb our way to solutions” instead of engaging in comprehensive diplomacy.

“You’d think we would have learned that lesson by now,” he said.

The Israeli military says it is bracing for a possible retaliatory attack “in the coming hours”, after carrying out a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs earlier.

“Following the IDF strike in Beirut … the IDF is preparing for potential fire toward the territory of the state of Israel in the coming hours,” the military said, without specifying from where the attack was expected.

Iran is still conveying its desired clauses to the US through Qatar and nothing has yet been finalised, Fars news agency reports, citing a source.

The source added that the Iran was conveying the message before today’s Israeli attacks on Beirut.

US President Donald Trump is set to hold talks with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France this month, the Egyptian presidency has said.

In a statement, the presidency said Sisi is expected to hold a series of meetings with world leaders during the summit, “including a bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump”.

It added that Sisi’s meetings would focus on “discussing ways to resolve international geopolitical crises and address their repercussions on trade, energy and supply chains”.

The G7 summit will be one of the first major international gatherings since the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran.

Lebanon’s foreign ministry says it has lodged a complaint with the United Nations over Israel’s alleged spraying of the herbicide glyphosate in Lebanese territory near the border earlier this year, AFP reports.

In a statement, the ministry said it had sent a letter to the UN Security Council and the UN secretary-general this week to complain about the incident, which occurred in February, a month before the latest Israel-Hezbollah war erupted on March 2.

The ministry said “laboratory tests and chemical analyses carried out on soil samples” in the south Lebanon border villages of Aita al-Shaab, Ras Naqura and Dhayra “confirmed the use of glyphosate at high levels of concentration”.

It said the levels “greatly exceed” those usually found in agricultural areas after regular use by farmers. The statement said the complaint was based on a report from Lebanon’s government-linked National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS).

At the time, the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said Israel had notified it of its plans to spray a “non-toxic chemical substance” near the border and had warned peacekeepers to take shelter.

According to a statement on the Iranian foreign minister’s official Telegram account, Araghchi made the remarks as he met with prominent figures and religious leaders in the capital, Tehran, Al Jazeera reports.

The top diplomat, referring to his country’s importance in regional security, said, “Regional security cannot be shaped through eliminating or ignoring Iran.”

He added: “The countries of the region have gradually come to the reality that sustainable security, economic development, and regional stability are only possible through cooperation, understanding, and consideration of the common interests of all countries in the region, including the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The top diplomat also stressed that the new security structure being shaped in the region requires the participation of all countries based on “collective cooperation”.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says Israeli strikes in Beirut have once again shown that the US “lacks the will to fulfil its commitments or the ability to do so”.

In a post on X, Ghalibaf said, “The Zionists’ incursion into Dahiyeh has once again shown that America either lacks the will to fulfil its commitments or the ability to do so”.

He added that the US and Israel’s “good cop, bad cop” routine was “outdated”.

“If you lack the will and ability to fulfil your commitments, speaking of continuing the path is not possible,” he added.

Sardar Asadi, an official at the Central Headquarters of Khatam al-Anbiya, says Israel’s air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburb will be met with retaliation, Al Jazeera reports.

“Without a doubt, these crimes will not go unanswered,” Asadi said, according to the Iranian Mizan news agency.

Lebanese civil defence agency says it recovered three bodies following the Israeli attack on the Ghobeiry area in Beirut’s southern suburb, Al Jazeera reports.

Search, rescue, and debris removal operations are ongoing at the site, it said in a statement.

The attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut‬⁩ was carried out by two warplanes that launched four guided missiles, Al Jazeera reports, citing the Israeli Broadcasting Authority.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Home Front Command has raised the alert level in the country to its highest level for a potential retaliatory response from Iran.

The Iranian football team is expected to fly to Los Angeles today for its first game in the FIFA World Cup against New Zealand in the city, marking the first time a World Cup host has hosted a country it is at war with, AFP reports.

Iran’s participation in the tournament was shrouded in doubt for months.

The Iranian team has had to leave many of its support staff in Tijuana after the US refused to grant visas to 15 administrative and management staff.

At least two people have been killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut, Al Jazeera reports, citing Lebanon’s National News Agency.

It added that the strike on a building in the Ghobeiry neighbourhood also wounded four other people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz have confirmed the strike on southern Beirut, Al Jazeera reports.

The military “has just struck Hezbollah terror targets” in the Dahiyeh district of Lebanon’s capital in response to Hezbollah “firing at Israeli territory”.

“Israel will not tolerate fire directed at its territory,” a statement said.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash has expressed the hope that the expected peace deal between the US and Iran will “turn the page on war and open a political path that proves successful”.

“We have never been advocates of war, and we will always remain advocates of peace and stability, while holding firmly to the defence of the homeland and the preservation of its sovereignty and interests,” he said on X.

He commended the UAE leadership’s “handling of this crisis and its repercussions”.

Israeli army has said that a recent hostile aircraft alert was a “false identification”, Al Jazeera reports.

The brief update by the Israeli military comes after sirens were activated in several areas in southern Israel.

A senior Iranian official has told Reuters that a final draft of the memorandum of understanding with the US covers a range of issues from Tehran’s nuclear work to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and US waivers on oil sanctions, with a final deal to be discussed in the 60 days following agreement by the two sides.

The Iranian official said the draft memorandum included the following:

Strait of Hormuz: Iran will immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all commercial vessels, while the US will lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports

Financial: The US will agree not to impose any new sanctions on Iran until a final deal is reached. The US will also waive oil sanctions on Iran for a specified period, allowing Tehran to sell oil and receive revenue.

The US has also agreed to release $25 billion of Iran’s frozen assets, including via direct cash transfers, cooperation among regional countries, and financial credit lines.

Nuclear: Tehran has agreed that it will neither produce nor acquire nuclear weapons. 

Tehran has also agreed to maintain the nuclear status quo until a final deal is reached, including by not enriching uranium and not expanding nuclear facilities. The US has agreed that Tehran will dilute its highly enriched uranium stockpile inside Iran, with a mechanism for doing so to be discussed within 60 days.

The Israeli military says sirens have been activated in several areas of southern Israel, Al Jazeera reports.

The Israeli military has claimed that three drones, suspected to have been launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon, struck northern Israel in separate incidents, causing no casualties, AFP reports.

“Two impacts of suspicious aerial targets in Israeli territory were identified near the Israel-Lebanon border. No injuries were reported,” the military said in an initial statement.

Later, in a separate statement, the military said another “hostile aircraft” infiltrated the northern Israeli territory.

In the wake of the strikes, two far-right Israeli ministers called for retaliatory strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh.

Tehran’s final decision on signing the agreement under discussion with the United States remains “under review”, Iran’s Fars news agency reports, citing an informed source close to Iran’s negotiating team.

Iran has not yet announced its decision on the proposed memorandum of understanding, according to the source, who added that the review of the political, legal, and technical aspects was still underway at the expert and decision-making levels.

“The responsible institutions are carefully evaluating the political, legal and technical aspects of the issue,” the report added.

Alerts have been activated due to the intrusion of hostile aircraft in several areas in the north of the country, Al Jazeera reports according to a brief update by the military.

The details are under review, it added.