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.
Here are all the details as it happens:
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel remains prepared to confront Iran if necessary, despite a truce reached between the United States and Iran.
“Let me be clear: We still have objectives to complete, and we will achieve them — either through agreement or through renewed fighting,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement.
“We are prepared to return to combat at any moment required. Our finger remains on the trigger. This is not the end of the campaign, but a step along the way to achieving all our objectives.”
“Iran enters this pause battered, weaker than ever.”
Netanyahu also hit back at opposition leaders who chastised him for agreeing to the truce before Israel achieved its objectives in the war.
“As you know, last night a temporary two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran came into effect, in full coordination with Israel,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement.
“No, we were not surprised at the last moment,” he said.
Israel’s main opposition figure Yair Lapid called the truce a “diplomatic disaster” for Israel, saying Netanyahu had failed to achieve the country’s goals.
Netanyahu had set the elimination or at least severe degradation of Iran’s nuclear programme as a central goal of the war, describing it as an “existential threat” to Israel.
He had also called to degrade Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, weaken or potentially topple the Iranian regime and curb Tehran’s regional influence by targeting its network of allied groups.
NATO ‘turned their backs’ on US over Iran: White House
NATO has “turned their backs” on the United States, the White House said Wednesday, just as the alliance’s secretary-general was set to meet with US President Donald Trump.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would discuss the possibility of leaving the alliance in those talks with Mark Rutte.
White House added that Iran closing Hormuz would be ‘completely unacceptable’
Continued attacks
Israel renewed its bombing of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Wednesday, targeting a residential neighbourhood, state media reported, hours after simultaneous strikes on the city.
“An enemy raid targeted Tallet al-Khayyat (neighbourhood) in Beirut,” the state-run National News Agency reported, while AFP journalists heard booms in the nearby Hamra area.
Earlier, Israeli forces fired warning shots at a convoy of Italian UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, damaging at least one vehicle but causing no injuries.
Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said the incident was “unacceptable” while Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the government was seeking clarification from the Israeli ambassador.
“To reiterate, Italian soldiers in Lebanon are not to be touched,” Tajani told parliament.
Israel said it had struck around 100 Hezbollah sites across Lebanon, describing the operation as the “largest coordinated strike” since the war with Iran began.
Three Indonesian peacekeepers were killed in separate incidents in southern Lebanon at the end of March, including two who died after an explosion struck a UNIFIL logistics convoy.