JD Vance stands firm and insists Lebanon ceasefire was never promised

President Donald Trump will discuss the US’ withdrawal from NATO in a meeting with the alliance’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said today.

It comes as the US President said that NATO was ‘tested and they failed’ during the Iran war, Leavitt said, sharing a direct quote from Trump.

Emmanuel Macron has taken to social media again tonight, this time to condemn today’s Israeli strikes against Lebanon.

I have just spoken with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. I expressed France’s full solidarity in the face of the indiscriminate strikes carried out by Israel in Lebanon today, which resulted in a very high number of civilian casualties.

We condemn these strikes in the strongest possible terms. They pose a direct threat to the sustainability of the ceasefire that has just been reached. Lebanon must be fully covered by it.

I reiterated the need to preserve Lebanon’s territorial integrity and France’s determination to support the efforts of the Lebanese authorities to uphold the country’s sovereignty and implement the Hezbollah disarmament plan.

We reported earlier that Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes have today killed 182 people and wounded 890.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (above) believes it would be unacceptable for ships to have to pay a fee to cross the Strait of Hormuz, as Iran has suggested following its ceasefire agreement with the US and Israel.

Tehran, which controls the vital shipping route, has proposed fees or tolls on vessels to safely pass through the strait.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has instead suggested the US and Iran could collect tolls in a joint venture, while the White House stressed the priority was reopening the strait without limitations.

However, Mitsotakis does not agree, instead arguing the strait always had freedom of navigation and that needs to continue.

‘I don’t think that the international community would be ready to accept Iran setting up a toll booth for every ship that crosses the strait,’ Mitsotakis told CNN. ‘That seems to me to be completely unacceptable.’

The centre-right leader added that a separate international agreement regarding the strait may be necessary.

But this agreement cannot, I repeat, cannot include a sort of a fee that ships will have to pay every time they cross the strait. This was not the case before the war started and it cannot be the case after the war finishes.

We would be setting a very, very dangerous precedent, if that were to happen, for the freedom of navigation.

A funeral is being held in Tehran for Major General Majid Khademi, the commander of the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Khamedi was killed overnight in an Israeli strike in the Iranian capital on April 6.

Continuing his post on X, Macron added that any agreement between the US, Israel and Iran would have to address ‘the concerns raised by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs’ and its control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Any agreement will have to address the concerns raised by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as its regional policy and its actions obstructing navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

This is how a strong and lasting peace can be built, with the support of all those who are able to contribute to it. France will play its full part, in close coordination with its partners in the Middle East.

This is also what I discussed today in my exchanges with the leaders of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and Iraq.

French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron has posted on social expressing his support for the US-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, but highlighted the need to include Lebanon in such a deal.

In a post on X he wrote:

I spoke today with Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian, as well as with U.S. President Donald Trump.

I told both of them that their decision to accept a ceasefire was the best possible one.

I expressed my hope that the ceasefire will be fully respected by each of the belligerents, across all areas of confrontation, including in Lebanon. This is a necessary condition for the ceasefire to be credible and lasting.

It must open the way to comprehensive negotiations capable of ensuring security for all in the Middle East.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes have today killed 182 people and wounded 890, but warned the number could still rise.

Israel announced earlier today it was carrying out its biggest wave of strikes on the country, hours after finalising a ceasefire agreement with the US and Iran.

Elsewhere, Lebanon’s health ministry reported that 1,739 people have been killed and 5,873 wounded in Lebanon since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2.

The Israeli military has struck the last direct crossing carrying most of the traffic to the key coastal city of Tyre over Lebanon’s Litani River, the strategic demarcation line separating southern Lebanon from the rest of the country.

The attack late Wednesday on the Qasmieh bridge further isolates southern Lebanon as the Israeli army pushes ahead with its ground invasion and bombardment following the announcement of a ceasefire in the Iran war.

Israel has bombed several bridges over the Litani, accusing Hezbollah of using them to bring fighters and military equipment to the border area. But the crossings are also crucial for Lebanese civilians and for those carrying humanitarian aid.

The strike comes as Israel seeks to create a ‘buffer zone’ that it says is necessary to protect its northern towns from Hezbollah rockets. Lebanese civilians fear long-term occupation and displacement.

Bahrain said on Wednesday it had reopened its airspace, which had been closed since the start of the Middle East war, after Iran and the US agreed a two-week ceasefire.

Iraq had earlier announced it was reopening its airspace.

Civil aviation authorities have ‘announced the reopening of airspace over the Kingdom of Bahrain’, the Bahrain News Agency reported.

It added that the operator of Bahrain International Airport, near the capital Manama, ‘confirms the gradual resumption of flights’ and is working ‘to ensure the efficient and smooth return of operational activities, while safeguarding the safety and security of travellers’.

Gulf nations have borne the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory attacks since the United States and Israel launched strikes in late February that ignited a regional war.

The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday in an 11th-hour bid to avert all-out destruction threatened by US President Donald Trump.

US Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday urged Iran not to let the fragile ceasefire deal fall apart over Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, days before he is due to lead talks with Tehran in Pakistan.

‘If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart… over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them, and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,’ Vance told reporters in Hungary.