Hezbollah’s leader on Saturday criticised a framework agreement that Israel and Lebanon signed a day earlier to end months of conflict between the militant group and Israel, raising concerns about its effectiveness.
Lebanon and Israel signed the deal in Washington on Friday without Hezbollah. The agreement links Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon to the Iran-backed militant group’s disarmament, something Hezbollah rejects.
Several previous ceasefire agreements that Lebanon has negotiated with Israel since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war were never implemented on the ground.
In a statement Saturday, Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said his group will keep fighting until Israel is forced to leave Lebanon. The group’s supporters protested in the streets of Beirut following the announcement of the agreement.
Despite the deal, the Lebanese state news agency reported an Israeli drone strike near the southern city of Nabatiyeh.
It also reported that the Israeli military released three Lebanese and three Syrian workers who were taken near the southern village of Ain Arab on Friday.
Inflation in Iran rose sharply in June, driven by the Middle East war, reaching a peak of 88.6 percent year-on-year according to official figures released on Saturday.
According to the Statistical Centre of Iran, during the Persian month of Khordad (May 22–June 21), food prices more than doubled year-on-year. Even before the war, Iran was plagued by high inflation.
The Israeli military said it carried out an airstrike on Saturday targeting suspected militants in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon, the first such attack since Washington announced a framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon.
On Friday, Israel, Lebanon and the United States signed a trilateral agreement aimed at paving the way for a broader peace deal between the two Middle East nations.
An Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP that Saturday’s airstrike targeted “suspected terrorists who posted a threat to IDF soldiers” in the Nabatieh area.
“The results of the strike are still being assessed.”
Lebanon was drawn into the broader Middle East war on March 2 when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem condemned the US-Israel-Lebanon framework agreement on Saturday, saying it a major mistake by Beirut and that his group deemed it null and void.
“The framework agreement in Washington is humiliating, shameful, and a surrender of sovereignty. This agreement is null and void, and the provisions of the Iranian-American memorandum of understanding must be implemented,” Qassem said in a statement, accusing Lebanese authorities of “legitimising” Israeli occupation through this “grave blunder”
Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi over phone after the US and Iran traded fresh strikes, threatening the fragile peace in the Gulf region, according to a statement on Saturday.
The US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on June 18, aimed at restoring peace in West Asia. It was followed by technical-level talks in Switzerland on June 21, with Pakistan and Qatar as mediators.
However, the two sides again got involved in attacks against each other. The US launched its airstrikes on Friday in response to an Iranian drone attack on a ship trying to get out of the Strait of Hormuz a day earlier.
Dar, who is also Pakistan’s foreign minister, spoke with Araghchi Friday night and reaffirmed Islamabad’s commitment to play its “constructive role” for achieving lasting peace and stability in the region, the Foreign Office said.
Araghchi expressed appreciation for Pakistan’s continued support in advancing the peace process, according to the statement.
He also thanked Pakistan for facilitating the safe and smooth repatriation of Iranian crew members and fishermen to their homeland.
A tanker reported being struck by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, Britain’s maritime security agency said, after the United States and Iran each launched strikes in the worst escalation since they signed their interim peace deal.
The warring sides each accused the other of violating the agreement they reached two weeks ago to end the four-month-old conflict. Washington said it hit Iranian targets overnight, while Iran said it had struck targets linked to US forces on Saturday in response.
Saturday’s attack on a tanker in the strait followed an attack on a cargo ship on Thursday that triggered the escalation. Iran has made a fresh bid to assert control over the world’s most important energy shipping route, which has begun to reopen over the past two weeks after months of disruption.
An Iranian state television correspondent on Saturday claimed that the number of vessels requesting permission to transit the Strait of Hormuz had increased since the morning, attributing the rise to what he described as the authority of the IRGC Navy.
“Since Saturday morning, the number of vessels seeking permission to enter and leave through the Strait of Hormuz has increased, and this is the result of the IRGC Navy’s authority,” the correspondent said during a broadcast.
Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said violations of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding would be met with a “swift and crushing” response.
In a post on X, Rezaei said the United States had violated the first clause of the memorandum by supporting “the actions of its proxy force in the region” and had breached the fifth clause through what he described as continued provocations in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The response to the violation of any clause of the memorandum will be swift and crushing,” Rezaei wrote.
A maritime body overseen by the US Navy said Saturday that a route through the Strait of Hormuz near Oman’s shores is expanding to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic.
The announcement by the Joint Maritime Information Centre serves as another warning to Iran that the US is pushing to reopen the strait.
Iran has insisted ships must obey its orders and is warning it will start charging fees for transit through the strait, through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas once passed.
The US and Gulf Arab states have rejected Iran’s demands. The Strait is considered around the world as an international waterway, despite being the territorial waters of Iran and Oman.
Iran launched a drone assault targeting Bahrain while a ship in the Strait of Hormuz separately came under attack Saturday, likely Tehran’s response to overnight airstrikes by the United States.
The attacks across the Persian Gulf show the danger of the Iran war again spinning out of control, even after Iran and the US reached an interim deal to try and agree on a final accord to end the conflict.
The US had launched its airstrikes in response to an Iranian drone attack on a ship trying to get out of the strait on Thursday, continuing a string of attacks that have shaken the uneasy ceasefire in the war.
That Iran targeted Bahrain likely was not coincidental. The kingdom has been one of the strongest critics of Iran and is home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet. It just hosted US secretary of state Marco Rubio for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s foreign ministers, which ended with a call for an end to Iran’s attacks and the strait to be completely open.
A statement from Bahrain’s foreign ministry said a “number of Iranian drones” targeted the country. It called the attack “a flagrant threat to the security of citizens and residents.”
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard earlier on Saturday issued a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency saying it had targeted several locations “of the U.S. terrorist army in the region.”
A tanker has reported being struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said on Saturday.
The vessel sustained damage to its bridge, but all crew were reported safe and no environmental damage had been reported at the time of the report, UKMTO added.
Iran said it struck targets linked to US forces on Saturday in response to US airstrikes on its southern coast, as each side continued to accuse the other of violating last week’s agreement meant to end the four-month-old war.
Iran’s foreign ministry did not identify the locations of its “defensive” attacks, which it said were a response to “the barbaric air strikes” by the US on its coastal surveillance facilities, which it said also violated the UN Charter.
Bahrain’s foreign ministry said Saturday that it had been targeted by several Iranian drones, accusing Tehran of sabotaging peace efforts after the United States and Iran traded strikes for the first time since signing an agreement to end the Middle East war.
The ministry expressed Bahrain’s “strongest condemnation of the targeting of its territory at dawn this Saturday by several Iranian drones, in flagrant violation of its sovereignty”, saying Iran’s attacks were “sabotaging peace efforts”.
Iran on Saturday accused the US of violating the peace deal agreed to end the conflict, after Washington launched strikes on Iranian territory and Tehran said it had responded with attacks on US targets in the Gulf.
Iran’s foreign ministry accused the United States of violating the US-Iran memorandum of understanding by carrying out airstrikes on coastal surveillance facilities in southern Iran, and cautioned neighbouring Gulf countries against allowing their territory or infrastructure to be used for future attacks on the Islamic Republic.
The ministry said the US strikes late on Friday constituted a “clear violation” of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and a “direct breach” of the first clause of the June memorandum that ended the recent conflict between the two countries.
It also accused Israel of conducting strikes in Lebanon “in coordination with the United States,” describing them as another violation of the same provision of the agreement.
Calling on countries along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf to uphold the principle of good neighbourliness, the ministry urged them to ensure that their territory and facilities are not used by what it described as “aggressor parties” to launch attacks against Iran.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday that it had begun a series of controlled explosions near Jahrom in the southern province of Fars to safely dispose of unexploded ordnance.
The IRGC’s Fajr Corps said the operation is being carried out near Mohammadabad, on the outskirts of Jahrom, and is expected to continue through the end of the week.
Bomb disposal units have been deployed to conduct the controlled detonations and clear the remaining unexploded munitions.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar held a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on Friday night.
According to the ministry, Dar reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to supporting efforts aimed at promoting lasting peace, stability and constructive engagement across the region and beyond.
US says Iran, Iran says US: Who really broke ceasefire this time?
Barely a week after the United States and Iran agreed to an interim ceasefire intended to end nearly four months of hostilities, the fragile truce came under strain on Friday (local time), with both sides accusing each other of violating its terms.
The latest flare-up followed an Iranian drone strike on a cargo ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. The United States blamed Tehran for the attack, describing it as a breach of the ceasefire, and responded by carrying out airstrikes on Iranian military targets.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said American aircraft targeted missile and drone storage facilities as well as coastal radar sites. It later released footage of one of the strikes and said the military operation had concluded.
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