{"id":48959,"date":"2026-04-24T09:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=48959"},"modified":"2026-04-24T09:04:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:04:50","slug":"israel-lebanon-extend-ceasefire-as-trump-seeks-best-deal-with-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=48959","title":{"rendered":"Israel, Lebanon extend ceasefire as Trump seeks ‘best deal’ with Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
Israel and Lebanon extended their ceasefire for three weeks at a meeting at the White House brokered by President Donald Trump, who said he \u200bwas prepared to wait for “the best deal” to end his\u00a0conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n

Fighting between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants\u00a0in Lebanon\u00a0has been one of a number of sticking points \u200cto resolving the wider eight-week regional conflict, along with Iran’s nuclear ambitions and control of the crucial Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

Trump said he was in no rush to reach a peace agreement and wanted it to be “everlasting,” while continuing to assert that the US\u00a0had a clear upper hand in the naval stand-off in the strait.<\/p>\n

A day after Iran flaunted its tightened grip over the key shipping corridor, Trump dismissed the threat posed by Iran’s “little wise-guy ships” and said he believed Tehran \u200bwas hamstrung from making a deal because its leadership was in turmoil.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, he said the US\u00a0could knock out in a day any refurbishing of weapons that Iran may have \u200bmade during a ceasefire in place since April 8.<\/p>\n

But navigation in the passage remained effectively blocked, and the Iranian capture of\u00a0two huge cargo ships\u00a0was \u2060a reminder that the US\u00a0struggles to keep control of the strait and Tehran continued to cause trouble for oil markets and pose major strains to the\u00a0global economy.<\/p>\n

The Philippine government said 15 Filipinos were \u200bon the two vessels and believed to be safe and that it expected the ships to be cleared soon.<\/p>\n

Oil prices\u00a0resumed their rise on Friday as the ceasefire remained shaky with the blockade of the \u200bstrait unresolved. The US\u00a0dollar\u00a0was moving closely with oil prices, on track for its first weekly gain in three weeks, with dampened hopes for an immediate easing of tensions leading to increased safe-haven demand.<\/p>\n

Iranian unity<\/p>\n

Iran’s use of a swarm of small, fast boats to seize the container ships cast doubt on Trump’s suggestions that US\u00a0forces have disabled its naval threats and underscored Tehran’s\u00a0evolving tactics\u00a0in the strait as it countered US\u00a0interception of Iran-linked oil tankers and other \u200bvessels.<\/p>\n

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah\u00a0Mojtaba Khamenei\u00a0on Thursday rejected Trump’s claim of disarray in the leadership, describing it as “the enemy’s media operations” to maliciously undermine Iranian unity and security.<\/p>\n

“Unity will become stronger and more solid, \u200band enemies will become weaker and more humiliated,” he said in a post on X, as he remained out of the public eye since taking over from his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by \u200cUS\u00a0strikes in \u2060the early days of the war that began on February 28.<\/p>\n

The prolonged conflict has deepened the fissure between the US\u00a0and NATO, with Trump repeatedly criticising members for failing to support US\u00a0operations. Washington is now weighing punishing “difficult” countries, such as Spain, according to\u00a0policy options\u00a0being reviewed on the bloc, a US\u00a0official told Reuters.<\/p>\n

The options are detailed in a note expressing frustration at some allies’ perceived reluctance or refusal to grant the US\u00a0access, basing and overflight rights for the Iran war, the official said on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

Trump said this week he would indefinitely extend what had been a two-week ceasefire with \u200bIran to allow for further peace talks, which have \u200byet to be scheduled.<\/p>\n

“Don’t rush me,” he \u2060said when asked how long he was willing to wait for a long-term peace deal. “I want to make the best deal … I want to have it everlasting”.<\/p>\n

He ruled out the use of nuclear weapons, telling reporters they were unnecessary because the US\u00a0had “decimated” Iran with conventional arms.<\/p>\n

“No, I wouldn’t use it. A \u200bnuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anybody,” Trump said when asked by a reporter at the White House.<\/p>\n

Deadly week<\/p>\n

Despite the\u00a0extension of \u200btheir ceasefire, fighting continued \u2060in southern Lebanon on Thursday as Israeli forces pounded Iranian-backed Hezbollah targets following some of the deadliest days since their earlier deal on April 16 to halt fighting.<\/p>\n

The Israeli military said Hezbollah militants attacked its troops in southern Lebanon on Thursday with rockets and a drone and fired rockets towards northern Israel.<\/p>\n

Israeli forces carried out a number of strikes in response, killing three Hezbollah militants and targeting the group’s infrastructure used to launch the \u2060attacks, it said.<\/p>\n

Israel \u200bhas sought to make common cause with Lebanon’s government over Hezbollah, which was founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps \u200band which Beirut has been seeking to disarm peacefully for the past year.<\/p>\n

The group was not present at the ceasefire talks in Washington.<\/p>\n

Before the announcement in Washington on Thursday, Israel warned it was ready to restart attacks on Iran and was waiting for \u200ba “green light” from the US.<\/p>\n

Defense Minister Israel Katz said if it did, it would begin by targeting Khamenei and “return Iran to a dark age”.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel and Lebanon extended their ceasefire for three weeks at a meeting at the White House brokered by President Donald Trump, who said he \u200bwas prepared to wait for “the best deal” to end his\u00a0conflict with Iran. Fighting between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants\u00a0in Lebanon\u00a0has been one of a number of sticking points \u200cto resolving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}