Israel’s security cabinet convened on Wednesday to discuss a possible Lebanon ceasefire, a senior Israeli official has told Reuters.
It comes more than six weeks into a war that has killed more than 2,100 Lebanese people, wounded more than 7,000 and displaced more than 1.2 million – creating a humanitarian disaster as Israel continues its deadly bombardment and now plans to occupy huge swathes of the country’s south.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is under heavy pressure from Washington to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon, another senior Israeli official said.
While the security cabinet was meeting, however, Netanyahu released a video statement in which he said the Israeli military continued to strike at Hezbollah and was about to “overcome” the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.
Netanyahu said he had instructed the military to continue reinforcing the so-called “security zone” – the area it plans to occupy – in southern Lebanon while at the same time negotiating a peace deal with the Lebanese government.
Israel and Lebanon held rare talks between government envoys in Washington on Tuesday.
“These negotiations have not taken place for over 40 years. They are happening now because we are very strong, and countries are coming to us – not only Lebanon,” Netanyahu said.
The US has announced it is tightening sanctions against Iran’s oil industry as Tehran keeps up its naval blockade of Iran’s ports.
The new punishment targets oil transport infrastructure by slapping sanctions on more than two dozen people, companies and ships that operate within the network of petroleum shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, the Treasury Department said.
“Treasury is moving aggressively with ’Economic Fury’ by targeting regime elites like the Shamkhani family that attempt to profit at the expense of the Iranian people,” US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement, alluding to a financial pressure campaign against Iran.
The report from Agence France-Presse also says Shamkhani is the son of security official Ali Shamkhani, an advisor to former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei – both of whom were killed at the start of war triggered by US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
The state department said in a separate communique:
The United States is acting to decisively limit Iran’s ability to generate revenue as it attempts to hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage.”
On Tuesday the Treasury department said it would not extend a temporary sanctions waiver that allowed the sale of Iranian oil already at sea. This had been an attempt to ease pressure on oil prices that shot up because of the war.
The US has threatened to sanction buyers of Iranian oil and says it believes China will pause such purchases as Washington enforces its maritime blockade on Iran.
“We have told countries that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions,” US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
Before the US maritime blockade on Iran began on Monday, China bought more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil. Bessent said:
We believe [that with] this blockade … there will be a pause of Chinese buying.”
The US Treasury had written to two Chinese banks and “told them that if we can prove that there is Iranian money flowing through your accounts, then we are willing to put on secondary sanctions”, Bessent said.
Reuters also reports that China’s embassy in the US did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Bessent’s remarks.
A key US bishop has defended Pope Leo XIV after JD Vance said the pontiff should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology” in relation to the US war on Iran.
Bishop James Massa, chair of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on doctrine, said in a formal response to Vance’s comments:
For over a thousand years, the Catholic Church has taught just war theory and it is that long tradition the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war.
Robert Mackey reports that Massa also wrote:
A constant tenet of that thousand-year tradition is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword ‘in self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2308). That is, to be a just war it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: ‘He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.’”
On Tuesday Vance, a Catholic convert, suggested the pope’s criticism of war – after the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran – was a matter of opinion. He also said:
There are certainly things that the pope has said in the last few months that I disagree with.”
His comments came as an ongoing squabble between the Trump administration and the Vatican over the Iran war took another twist on Wednesday when Leo shared a message of peace and healing after the latest broadside from the White House.
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The White House denied reports that the United States has requested an extension to its ceasefire with Iran, which is set to expire next week. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that was “not true” and that talks were “productive and ongoing”, and that the US “feels good about the prospects of a deal” with Iran.
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A second round of talks “would very likely” take place in Islamabad again, Leavitt said. She added that Pakistan is “the only mediator” in these discussions and praises their efforts. Several outlets have reported today that in-person talks could resume next week. Meanwhile, a delegation from Pakistan arrived in Tehran for further discussion with the Iranian regime. It all comes as Donald Trump said earlier that the war was “very close to over”, while Tehran said messages were still being exchanged via Pakistan.
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The White House also said that the US blockade of Iranian ports “has been fully implemented” and applies to ships of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports. Leavitt also declined to give a timeline for how long the blockade will last. US Central Command later said it had intercepted an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel that “tried to evade the US blockade”. The ship was “successfully redirected” and heading back to Iran, Centcom said. Centcom added that no vessels had made it through since the US blockade began on Monday.
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Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing a possible ceasefire in Lebanon after Washington applied pressure. After direct Israel-Lebanon talks on Tuesday, Israel’s security cabinet met on Wednesday to discuss a ceasefire. But the IDF continues to strike the country in the meantime, with theIsraeli prime minister saying in a video statement that Israel was about to “overwhelm” one part of southern Lebanon. He said Israelis “prepared for any scenario” if fighting should resume, adding: “It is too early to say how this matter will end, or even how it will progress.”
US Central Command has said it intercepted an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel that “tried to evade the US blockade” of all ships entering or exiting Iranian ports.
In a post on X, Centcom said the the ship was intercepted on Tuesday after departing the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas and exiting the strait of Hormuz.
It said the US guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance “successfully redirected the vessel”, which is now heading back to Iran.
Centcom added:
Ten vessels have now been turned around and ZERO ships have broken through since the start of the U.S. blockade on Monday.
Israel’s security cabinet convened on Wednesday to discuss a possible Lebanon ceasefire, a senior Israeli official has told Reuters.
It comes more than six weeks into a war that has killed more than 2,100 Lebanese people, wounded more than 7,000 and displaced more than 1.2 million – creating a humanitarian disaster as Israel continues its deadly bombardment and now plans to occupy huge swathes of the country’s south.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is under heavy pressure from Washington to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon, another senior Israeli official said.
While the security cabinet was meeting, however, Netanyahu released a video statement in which he said the Israeli military continued to strike at Hezbollah and was about to “overcome” the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.
Netanyahu said he had instructed the military to continue reinforcing the so-called “security zone” – the area it plans to occupy – in southern Lebanon while at the same time negotiating a peace deal with the Lebanese government.
Israel and Lebanon held rare talks between government envoys in Washington on Tuesday.
“These negotiations have not taken place for over 40 years. They are happening now because we are very strong, and countries are coming to us – not only Lebanon,” Netanyahu said.
Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani spoke to Donald Trump on the phone on Wednesday about “rapidly escalating tensions in the region” and called for de-escalation, according to the emir’s office.
The two leaders discussed international maritime security and the stability of energy markets and global supply chains amid competing blockades of the critical strait of Hormuz.
“His Highness also stressed the importance of intensifying international efforts to spare the region further escalation,” the Qatari statement said.
The emir also emphasised the need to use diplomatic means to preserve regional and global security and stability.
Rachel Reeves, the UK chancellor, earlier stepped up her criticism of Donald Trump’s war on Iran, describing it as a “mistake” that has destabilised the global economy and damaged living standards around the world.
In a marked fraying of the transatlantic relationship, she told an event in Washington that Trump breaking off from diplomatic talks with Iran and launching airstrikes seemed to have left the US president in a worse place than when he started, saying:
I think it was a mistake to end those [talks with Iran] and to enter into conflict, because I’m not convinced that we are safer today than we were a few weeks ago.
Taking aim at the White House on the president’s home turf, the chancellor’s comments added to blunt criticism of him she made just before flying out on Tuesday, when she expressed frustration at the “folly” of his decision to go to war without a clear exit plan.
Speaking as she prepared to meet global finance ministers at this week’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Reeves said the war had hit living standards in the UK and the US.
Calling for the urgent reopening of the strait of Hormuz to calm global energy prices, she told the CNBC Invest in America conference that the lack of clear US targets in negotiations with Iran had worsened the situation:
We had the waterway open a few weeks ago. So, if now the objective is to reopen the strait of Hormuz? Well, it was open at the beginning of this conflict.
Reeves said she had come to the IMF meetings to “deliver that fair message” that the conflict was hitting living standards worldwide and required urgent de-escalation:
We feel very strongly in our national interest that de-escalation is now the key priority. That’s what businesses and families are telling me back home and that’s the message I’m coming here to Washington to give this week.
Her comments came hours after the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, said that he would not alter his stance on the war, despite Trump threatening to rip up the US-UK trade deal because of what he perceives as the lack of support he has received from Britain.
Starmer said:
I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to yield. It is not in our national interest to join this war, and we will not do so.
In a vote of 47-52, Senate Democrats failed to pass a war powers resolution to curb the Trump administration’s military campaign in Iran.
The Republican senator Rand Paul voted yes on the measure, bucking his party. while John Fetterman was the only Democratic senator to vote against the resolution.
This is the upper chamber’s fourth failed attempt but its first since Congress returned from its most recent recess and the ongoing two-week ceasefire with Iran began.
At an earlier press conference, Democrats vowed to force a war powers resolution vote every week until it advances, in order to get Republicans “on record” supporting the war.
“Our numbers will grow,” said Chris Murphy, who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee. House Democrats are pushing for a vote on a similar measure this week.
Iran could consider allowing ships to sail freely through the Omani side of the strait of Hormuz without risk of attack as part of proposals it has offered in negotiations with the United States, providing a deal is clinched to prevent renewed conflict, a source briefed by Tehran told Reuters.
The source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said Iran could be willing to let ships use the other side of the narrow strait without any hindrance from Tehran.
The source did not say whether Iran would also agree to clear any mines it may have placed in that stretch of water or if all ships – even those linked to Israel – would be allowed to pass freely.
But they added the proposal hinged on whether Washington was prepared to meet Tehran’s demands, a condition that was central to any potential breakthrough with the strait of Hormuz.
As Israel’s military continued to strike at Hezbollah, Netanyahu said he has instructed the military to continue reinforcing the security zone in southern Lebanon while at the same time negotiating a peace deal with Beirut.
“These negotiations have not taken place for over 40 years. They are happening now because we are very strong, and countries are coming to us – not only Lebanon,” he said.
He said in the talks with Lebanon, Israel has two main objectives – the dismantling of Hezbollah and a sustainable peace that is “achieved through strength”.
Netanyahu said Israeli forces were focused on Bint Jbeil, which he called the capital of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
“We are, in effect, about to eliminate this great stronghold of Hezbollah,” he said.
On Iran, Netanyahu said the US keeps Israel updated and the two countries are aligned on their goals to see enriched nuclear material removed from Iran, the cancellation of enrichment capabilities within Iran, and the opening of the strait of Hormuz.
“It is too early to say how this matter will end, or even how it will progress,” he said. Should fighting resume, Netanyahu added “we are prepared for any scenario”.
The United Arab Emirates summoned the Iraqi charge d’affaires and handed him a formal protest note over what it described as attacks launched from Iraqi territory, a statement said on Wednesday.
