Pete Hegseth claims ‘Iran begged for this ceasefire’: Live

US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth claimed today that Iran begged for a ceasefire

At a Pentagon press briefing, Hegseth added that Trump achieved ‘victory with a capital V.’

The IDF said it managed to hit more than 100 sites belonging to Hezbollah in just ten minutes.

It said in a statement: ‘Within 10 minutes and across multiple areas simultaneously: The [Israeli army] completed the largest coordinated strike targeting more than 100 Hezbollah command centers and military sites.’

It added that targeted areas included Beirut, Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon.

Syria says it has reopened its airspace for all flights, citing an easing of tensions following the announcement of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran.

The Syrian Civil Aviation Authority reported a return to normal, safe conditions at the Damascus International Airport on Wednesday.

Syria’s airspace had been closed in recent weeks after the US and Israel attacked the Islamic Republic and Iran retaliated with strikes on targets across the Middle East.

The National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company has said in a statement that an oil refinery located on Iran’s Lavan Island was hit this morning at 06:30am.

‘Missile and drone attacks on the Emirates and Kuwait have taken place a few hours after the targeting of Lavan island oil facilities in Iran,’ state TV channel IRIB said.

It quoted the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company as saying the Lavan Oil Refinery facility on the island ‘was subjected to a cowardly attack’ despite a ceasefire deal announced late Tuesday.

‘Safety and firefighting teams are controlling and extinguishing the fire and securing the facility,’ the company was quoted as saying.

‘Fortunately, with the timely evacuation of employees, no casualties have been reported so far.’

The Lavan refinery on the small Gulf island processes crude extracted from a nearby oilfield, which supplies Iran’s highest quality oil for export, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

It was Iran’s 10th biggest refinery in 2020, handling 60,000 barrels of crude a day on average, according to EIA figures.

Other Iranian islands in the Gulf were attacked during the war, notably the key oil export hub of Kharg, where military installations were hit twice by US airstrikes.

President Donald Trump said on social media that any nation providing military weapons to Iran ‘will be immediately tariffed, on any and all goods sold to the United States of America, 50%, effective immediately.’

‘There will be no exclusions or exemptions!’ Trump posted.

It remains unclear how the president plans to enforce the threat of import taxes, as his social media posts do not automatically create a new set of tariffs.

The Israeli Defence Forces said it attacked 100 command centres and military infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah in 10 minutes.

Loud booms could be heard throughout Beirut, and smoke was rising from several points.

Since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war on March 2, Israel has regularly struck southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, but rarely in the center of Beirut.

There was no immediate report on the number of casualties.

The strikes came hours after a ceasefire was announced in the US-Israeli war with Iran. Israel has said the agreement does not extend to Lebanon, although mediator Pakistan said it does.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday the US will work with Iran to ‘dig up and remove’ its enriched uranium that was buried under joint US-Israeli strikes last summer.

Trump said on social media: ‘There will be no enrichment of Uranium’ and that none of the material had been touched since the June attacks.

He previously said the US would retrieve the deeply buried material, which is expected to be an intensive undertaking, if it struck an agreement with Iran.

‘We are, and will be, talking Tariff and Sanctions relief with Iran,’ Trump said.

Although Trump had said on Tuesday the US found a 10-point ceasefire proposal from Iran ‘workable,’ the president on Wednesday suggested many of the points in his 15-point plan, which Iran had rejected, had been agreed to.

Iran has not said that, nor has it confirmed it would work with the US to retrieve the buried uranium.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned on Tuesday that they had ‘no trust’ in promises from the United States despite a two-week ceasefire deal, adding that their ‘finger was on the trigger’.

‘The Iranian nation’s dedicated guards are listening to the orders of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, His Holiness Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, and their finger is on the trigger,’ read a statement on their Telegram channel.

Calling on Gulf countries to end their ‘cooperation’ with the United States, the Guards added: ‘The enemy has always been deceitful, and we have no trust in its promises, and we will respond to every aggression at a greater level.’

Yvette Cooper described the ceasefire as ‘a vital step’ towards security and stability in the Middle East.

She said a swift resolution was the best way to improve security and ease the economic impacts caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

She said the proposed talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan must lead to a ‘full end to the conflict and ensure that Iran does not continue to threaten the strait or its neighbours’.

‘I also call for an urgent end to hostilities in Lebanon,’ she added.

The Israeli army said its forces killed Hamas member Muhammad Dawwad in northern Gaza earlier this week.

In a statement, the army claimed without providing evidence that Dawwad was responsible for producing Hamas’s explosives and also led attacks against the Israeli army.

Israel has kept up its attacks on Gaza while striking Iran and Lebanon.

At least four Palestinians were killed in an attack on the enclave on Sunday.

The government in Europe’s biggest economy is calling for ‘realistic expectations’ after the ceasefire announcement.

German officials say their country doesn’t have a supply problem but point to the effect of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on the global market.

Government spokesperson Sebastian Hille noted ‘significant setbacks’ are possible at any time in the peace process, damaged production facilities need to be repaired, reopening the strait will take time, and ships will take weeks to make their journeys.

He said it will take time for significant price reductions to show up.