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Middle East crisis live: conflicting reports over proposed one-week ceasefire in Lebanon

US president Donald Trump said that China and the United States are working together and that Beijing is happy that he is opening the strait of Hormuz. “China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them, also - And the World. This situation will never happen again. They have agreed not to send weapons to Iran,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Donald Trump said the war was “close to over” as he hinted at another round of peace talks in Pakistan in the coming days. Speaking to Fox News, the US president said the conflict was near its end. “I think it’s close to over, yeah, I mean I view it as very close to over. The pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, citing an Iranian official, has reported that a one-week ceasefire will take effect in Lebanon starting tonight. The move comes after pressure from Iran, according to the official. The truce will coincide with the final week of the temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran. The US military said that it successfully stopped nine vessels from sailing out of Iranian ports during the first 48 hours of a naval blockade against the Islamic republic. “Nine vessels have complied with direction from US forces to turn around and return toward an Iranian port or coastal area,” US Central Command (Centcom), which is responsible for American troops in the Middle East, said in a post on X. Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday at the start of a four-day tour before a possible second round of US-Iran peace talks, his office said in a statement. Sharif will also visit Qatar and Turkey on his trip, which comes after Washington and Tehran held their highest-level talks in decades in Islamabad last weekend. Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes targeted paramedic teams in south Lebanon on Wednesday, killing at least three of them. “The Israeli enemy targeted paramedic teams in the town of Mayfadoun, Nabatiyeh District, three consecutive times,” the ministry said in a statement. Israel’s military chief of staff said he had ordered areas south of Lebanon’s Litani River to be turned into a Hezbollah “kill zone” as troops pressed a major offensive there. “I have ordered that all of the area of south Lebanon up to the Litani (River) line be turned into a Hezbollah terrorist kill zone,” chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said on a visit to troops operating in the area. The pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, citing an Iranian official, has reported that a one-week ceasefire will take effect in Lebanon starting tonight. The move comes after pressure from Iran, according to the official. The truce will coincide with the final week of the temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Wednesday at 8pm to discuss a possible ceasefire in Lebanon, a senior Israeli official has said. The United States has not formally agreed to the extension of its ceasefire with Iran, a senior official said on Wednesday. “There is continued engagement between the US and Iran to reach a deal,” a senior US official told Reuters. Iran’s foreign ministry has said that Tehran’s right to enrich uranium was “indisputable” although the level of enrichment is “negotiable”. In a weekly press briefing, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy could not be “taken away under pressure or through war”. Finance ministers from more than 10 countries, including the UK, have called for a “swift and lasting” end to the US-Iran war. In a joint statement issued by the UK Treasury, the ministers said the US-Israeli strikes and Iran’s retaliatory attacks have caused “unacceptable loss of life and significant disruption to the global economy and financial markets”.

Pope Leo shares message of unity amid spat with Trump: ‘We can live in peace’

The ongoing squabble between the Trump administration and the Vatican over the war in Iran took another twist on Wednesday when Pope Leo shared a message of peace and healing after the latest angry broadside from the White House. On Tuesday, JD Vance capped several days of insults by insinuating the pontiff was not being truthful in matters of theology, and did not understand the concept of war. “How can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword?” the vice-president said during a Turning Point USA event at the University of Georgia, at which he was heckled by anti-war protesters. “Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps? It’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology … you’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth.” A day earlier, Vance, a Catholic convert, advised the US-born Pope Leo XIV “to stick to matters of morality” after an earlier post on X in which Leo denounced the US-Israel war in Iran. “God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs,” Leo wrote. On Wednesday, the pope spoke with reporters onboard the papal plane heading for Cameroon on an 11-day visit to Africa. He did not directly address Vance’s comments, or a barrage of recent social media insults by Donald Trump, who labelled him “weak” and “terrible”. But his comments made clear that the five-day spat, which began on Saturday when Leo said during evening prayers at St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City that a “delusion of omnipotence” surrounded the Iran war, was on his mind. He used as a conduit his visit on Tuesday to Annaba, the ancient city of Hippo where St Augustine, the theological and philosophical giant of the early church, lived as a bishop for more than 30 years. “His writings, his teaching, his spirituality, his invitation to search for God and to search for truth is something that is very much needed today, a message that is very real for all of us today as believers in Jesus Christ, but for all people,” Leo said. By going to Hippo, Leo said he wanted to offer the church and the world a vision that St Augustine offers in terms of seeking “unity among all peoples and respect for all people in spite of the differences”. He did not take any questions from reporters, but continued to push the message that dialogue and healing, rather than force, anger and hatred, were essential ingredients in resolving conflict. Leo recalled that the vast majority of Algerians are Muslim, but that they respect and honor St Augustine as “one of the great sons of their land”. Such an attitude, he said, helped build bridges between Christians and Muslims, and promoted dialogue. “The visit to the mosque was significant to say that although we have different beliefs, we have different ways of worshiping, we have different ways of living, we can live together in peace,” Leo said. “And so I think that to promote that kind of image is something which the world needs to hear today.” Leo’s approach to the quarrel contrasts sharply with that of Trump. As well as repeatedly insulting the head of the Catholic church on his Truth Social platform, the president was on Monday forced to take down a “blasphemous” AI-generated image of himself as a Jesus Christ-like healer after backlash from his supporters on the religious right. Trump’s attacks have generally not played well even among his own loyal base, and certainly not in Rome, where a majority of tourists and business owners who spoke to the Guardian defended the pope. This week’s dispute is not the first time that Trump, a fervent promoter of white Christian nationalism, has mocked the Vatican or upset the 1.4bn-strong Catholic church. In May last year, during the official mourning period for Pope Francis, Trump announced he “would like to be pope”, and posted an image of himself dressed in a white cassock and miter, and wearing a gold crucifix necklace. On Wednesday, Trump shared an AI image of himself being held by Jesus Christ with a caption that referenced the exposing of “satanic, demonic, child sacrificing monsters”, and said “God might be playing his Trump card.” Trump wrote alongside the image and its accompanying text: “The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!” The Associated Press contributed reporting

Peace activist, 91, walks across Ireland in protest against US military stopovers

A 91-year-old peace activist has crossed Ireland on foot and arrived in Dublin to petition the government to bar US military flights. Lelia Doolan completed a two-week, 220km (138 mile) trek on Wednesday, ending at the gates of parliament accompanied by throngs of supporters. The film producer and activist made the journey to protest against the US military’s use of Shannon airport in County Clare. “US military planes are landing without anybody ever agreeing in government to search them or see what’s in them. Shannon is a civilian airport. It’s not a military airport.” US personnel with sidearms pass through Shannon but the government says the airport is not used in US combat operations and that there is no evidence that weapons and supplies for US attacks enter Irish airspace. Doolan, however, said the agreement to permit some US military flights violated Irish neutrality and that people had been “fooled” into thinking the practice had to continue. “It doesn’t have to continue.” She started from the airport on 31 March and met supporters in Limerick, Nenagh, Roscrea, Portlaoise, Newbridge, Naas and other stops on her way to the capital, covering most but not all of the distance on foot. Activists have for decades protested against the agreement that lets US military aircraft refuel at the airport, on the west coast. The conflict in the Middle East has galvanised renewed action, including an incident last week when a man in his 40s was arrested after allegedly damaging a US air force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft that was parked on a remote taxiway. Controversy over US military flights has spread throughout Europe, including Italy, which last month denied the use of an airbase in Sicily. Doolan said she felt a duty to protest against the traffic of US military personnel through Ireland and to avow Irish neutrality. It did not take much for a woman to be considered “troublesome”, she said. “That’s why there is so many of us”. She exhorted those who wished to make a difference to act on the impulse. “It’s very simple. Just do it.” Supporters joined Doolan, who turns 92 next month, for sections of the “walk with Lelia” campaign. The journey, which was also in memory of Doolan’s late friend and fellow campaigner Margaretta D’Arcy, included traditional music sessions. Hugs, cheers, Palestinian flags and opposition politicians greeted Doolan when she reached Leinster House, which hosts the Dáil and Seanad chambers of parliament. Doolan – who had celebrated her 90th birthday with a skydive – paid tribute to those she met during the walk. “If you only knew how wonderful the people of Ireland are. If only you knew how engaging they are, decent and intelligent they are.” She read a poem titled Kindness, by Naomi Shihab Nye, and joined supporters in a peace song. In the Dáil, Ivana Bacik, the leader of the Labour party, praised Doolan and urged the government to stop allowing US military planes use Shannon. The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, expressed his respect for Doolan and said he would try to meet her, but said the airport had no role in the Middle East conflict. “We need to be very careful that we don’t miscategorise Shannon airport. I think that will damage Shannon airport.”

‘Don’t lose sight of Ukraine,’ Nato chief tells European allies – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! Hungarian election winner Péter Magyar has confirmed work is under way to form the new Hungarian government by mid-May after holding talks with the country’s president, Tamás Sulyok, a loyalist of the outgoing prime minister, Viktor Orbán (11:43). Magyar urged Sulyok to resign from the post or face legislative removal as part of a broader overhaul of Hungary’s democratic institutions after years of Orbán rule, which is also expected to include suspending state media news broadcasts (12:37 and 15:56) Meanwhile, the US president, Donald Trump, unexpectedly praised the incoming Hungarian prime minister saying “the new man is going to do a good job,” as he distances himself from Orbán, despite repeated support for him in the build up to the election (13:29). Separately, Ukraine’s allies met in Berlin and online to discuss their continued support for Kyiv amid concerns that the Middle East conflict could affect the support for wartorn country (16:44). Top Nato, German, British and Italian leaders have pledged to continue their backing for Ukraine, with hopes that the change of government in Hungary could also unblock the EU’s planned loan for Kyiv (16:52, 16:56, 17:03, 17:10, 17:52). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

New EU entry-exit system causing up to three-hour delays, say airports

Travellers going through some European airports are reportedly waiting up to three hours at border checks because of the EU’s new entry-exit system (EES). Passengers in airports in countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Greece are waiting several hours at border checks, the Airports Council International (ACI) body has said. Olivier Jankovec, the director of the ACI European division, told the Financial Times: “This situation, in the coming weeks and certainly over the peak summer months, is going to be simply unmanageable. “We are seeing those queueing times now, at peak times, when traffic is just starting to build up.” The EES came into effect on Friday in the Schengen countries – 25 of the EU’s 27 states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. It requires passengers from non-EU countries, such as the UK, to register their personal information and biometrics at the border. The system has been gradually introduced since October, and has already caused long delays at some airports. On Sunday the BBC reported that more than 100 passengers were unable to board an easyJet flight from Milan to Manchester before it took off because of delays at passport desks. Airport representatives and the European Commission held a meeting to discuss problems with the system on Tuesday. The ACI is said to have asked to extend existing exemptions, as well as the power to fully suspend the new checks. Jankovec told the FT that the ACI needed the ability to “fully suspend EES registration whenever there are excessive waiting times at border control that are just unmanageable”. A spokesperson for the European Commission said: “What we can see from the first days of full operation is that the system is working very well. In the overwhelming majority of member states there are no issues.” The commission said that the average registration of a passenger was 70 seconds, although the ACI has claimed that it can take up to five minutes. The spokesperson said there were a “few member states where technical issues have been detected” but that they “are being addressed”. They said: “It is up to member states to ensure the proper implementation of the EES on the ground.” The spokesperson added that since the EES was introduced in October, it had registered more than 52m entries and exits, as well as more than 27,000 refusals of entry. Of those, almost 700 people were identified as posing a security threat. In the run-up to Easter and before the EES was launched in full on 10 April, passengers crossing the Channel from the UK to France were told that they did not have to provide any biometric information because of delays in France’s developing the technology needed to collate and process the data. Issues with the EES come as European airports also braced for potential jet fuel supply disruption caused by the blockade of the strait of Hormuz. On Friday the ACI wrote to the EU’s energy and transport commissioners predicting the bloc was three weeks away from systemic shortages. Europe consumed about 1.6m barrels a day of jet fuel last year, of which roughly 500,000 were imported, according to the International Energy Agency, with about 75% coming from the Middle East. Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Europe’s biggest airline, Ryanair, has said the EES was causing queues of up to four hours at some airports, describing the system as “a shit show and a shambles” and a punishment for Brexit. He suggested that the EU should postpone the full introduction until October.

Suspicion surrounds death of US influencer Ashly Robinson in Zanzibar

Ashly Robinson, a US lifestyle influencer, died last week while on vacation in the Tanzanian islands of Zanzibar with her boyfriend, Joe McCann. Robinson’s death on 9 April, just days after her birthday and a marriage proposal from McCann, has sparked suspicion on social media, with users doubtful of the current narrative surrounding her death. No arrests have been made, and police previously said that McCann was not suspected of wrongdoing. But officials in Zanzibar released a statement on Tuesday saying that McCann’s passport has been “withheld”. Robinson’s family is seeking answers into her death. The visit was supposed to be “one of the happiest of trips”, according to a statement the family issued on Sunday. Instead, Robinson was “found unconscious in her villa and taken to hospital, where her death was confirmed hours later”. “Nothing about this loss feels real,” the statement reads. “One moment she was celebrating love and life in truly Ashly fashion, and the next, she was gone. The suddenness, the unanswered questions, and the distance from home have made this tragedy even more overwhelming for our family.” According to the BBC, Robinson’s parents said they had heard from McCann 11 hours after the incident that is thought to have led to her death, though with not much detail. He told them at the time that Robinson was OK. Later, Zuri Zanzibar, the hotel at which they had been staying, informed the family that Robinson was dead. The hotel told the BBC that it was cooperating with authorities and the US embassy. The family told TMZ that McCann had not reached out since the initial call. The confusion around her death grew from there. Initially, Zanzibar police reported that Robinson, 31, had attempted to take her own life, according to the local outlet Mwanachi. Zanzibar’s North Unguja police chief, Benedict Mapujira, said that the couple had a misunderstanding that led to hotel management splitting them into different rooms – something the hotel did not confirm. Local police, as of Tuesday, maintain that McCann is not suspected of wrongdoing. “We cannot take legal action or detain him under these circumstances,” Mapujira said to Mwananchi.

South Africa names apartheid-era negotiator as ambassador to US

South Africa has appointed a former apartheid government chief negotiator during the talks that ended white rule in the 1990s as ambassador to the US, in what is seen as an attempt to improve the deeply strained diplomatic relationship between the two countries. Roelf Meyer replaces Ebrahim Rasool, who was expelled in March 2025 after he criticised the Trump administration. Since Donald Trump began his second term, the US president has accused South Africa’s government of racial discrimination against white Afrikaners, who led the country during apartheid. His government has also given priority to white South Africans, who have come to the US as refugees while almost all other refugees have been shut off. Meyer, an Afrikaner, was a reformist minister in the last apartheid government, while Cyril Ramaphosa, now president, was his opposite number in the African National Congress in the negotiations that brought about democracy in 1994. The two formed a close rapport. Meyer joined the ANC in 2006. The ambassador-elect would not be giving interviews until his credentials had been accepted by the US, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said. “At this stage, until all administrative protocols have been completed in Washington it would be unwise for him to be speaking to the media now. I don’t have a sense of timelines, as it’s a state department process and we have no control over it,” he added. South Africa has not had an ambassador in Washington since Rasool was expelled, accused by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, of being a “race-baiting politician who hates America”. Rasool had told a thinktank event that Trump’s Make America Great Again movement was a “supremacist” response to demographic shifts meaning that white people would soon no longer be a majority in the US. In July 2025, Meyer said in an interview that the US was an “important partner” that could not be ignored. “We have to work at restoring that relationship. I think it’s very important,” he said. “And I think maybe there is something of a blame going our way, and that is that we didn’t pay enough attention to keeping that relationship going over a period of time, even pre this current administration’s period.” The 78-year-old said at the time that the hard work of being ambassador needed “youthful energy”, adding, “I don’t think somebody of my age should take on that responsibility at this stage, quite frankly.” Meyer criticised “Afrikaner groups that went [to Washington and] are not speaking on behalf of me as an Afrikaner, let alone the rest of the nation”, saying their lobbying was “distorting the picture”. The conservative Afrikaner group AfriForum has promoted the idea in Washington that the killing of white farmers is racially targeted, despite South Africa’s high murder rate affecting all races. Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed that there is a “white genocide” in South Africa. His administration has also criticised the country’s affirmative action policies and its case at the international court of justice that accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Prof John Stremlau, a US-Africa relations expert at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, called Meyer “the right person, at the right time”. “He is an excellent and experienced negotiator who not only negotiated in South Africa, but has brokered agreements elsewhere in various other places under very difficult circumstances,” Stremlau told Associated Press, adding that Meyer needed to “stabilise the relationship” between South Africa and the US.

Does Viktor Orbán’s defeat signal a wider backlash against ‘the forces of darkness’?

When future historians come to write about the stunning electoral overthrow of Viktor Orbán on 12 April 2026, let’s hope they devote at least footnotes to zebras and golden toilet brushes. The zebras were spotted by drones on the sprawling grounds of a countryside palace belonging to Orbán’s extended family. The 72 gilded toilet brushes were said to have been bought at a cost of almost €10,000, for a lavish renovation of Hungary’s central bank. For Orbán’s opponents, such excesses became symbols of the rampant corruption among cronies of Orbán’s ruling party Fidesz, which drained Hungary’s economy and earned the country the worst ranking on the crookedness league tables in the EU, as Ashifa Kassam and Flora Garamvolgyi reported. In the end, it was disgust with corruption and how that corruption affected people’s livelihoods that were the main factors behind Sunday’s election rout. But the landslide achieved by Peter Magyar’s Tisza party – despite an electoral system designed to favour Fidesz – suggests that these eye-popping details were merely the last straws for a population desperate to reclaim their country as a functioning democracy. Orbán’s rightwing populist rule has cast a shadow over Europe for almost 16 years. That he went without a fight, within hours of the polls closing, was the best news the continent’s beleaguered liberal democratic leaders could have hoped for. How will the end of Orban’s self-styled “illiberal democracy” now reverberate beyond Hungary’s borders? Despite all the caveats and uncertainties, a panel of experts I commissioned on this question is a hopeful read. As our Guardian Europe columnist Nathalie Tocci summed up: “This marks a victory for liberalism in the world, even more than in Hungary itself.” Historian Timothy Garton Ash, who covered the collapse of communism in Hungary in 1989, when Orbán was “a fiery young student leader calling for the Russians to go home”, echoed similar hope in his Guardian column. Garton Ash, who was among the joyful, almost disbelieving crowds on the banks of the Danube on Sunday night, says the critical question is whether Hungary can become the first country in the world to pull its democracy back from such far-reaching populist erosion “and whether Europe has the political will and imagination to enable it to succeed”. *** Good news for Europe After 16 years of Hungary behavng like a rogue state within the EU, an important reset is now on the cards. Orbán’s Hungary had lost all trust, becoming a geopolitical Trojan horse, or “Putin’s man in Brussels”, as Garton Ash puts it. The incoming prime minister is no liberal. Magyar – profiled here – was in the Fidesz government before breaking ranks in 2024. And while unseating Orbán is one thing, ridding the country of Orbánism is another. Poland’s recent experience shows how difficult it is to restore the rule of law after years of populist rule. But Magyar has 70% of the seats in parliament, the crucial “supermajority” needed to dismantle Orbán’s system, and is committed to restoring democratic institutions. On Monday he vowed to pursue those who “plundered, looted, betrayed, indebted and ruined” his country. Declaring an outbreak of peace with the EU, (which most Hungarians appear to want) he said: “we are not going there [to Brussels] to fight for the sake of fighting”. Even if he initially only seeks a limited re-set to secure the release of €17bn in frozen EU funds for Hungary, the constructive approach his stated plan implies could be transformational. *** Bad news for Russia Orbán’s exit is not the outcome Russia wanted: Vladimir Putin has lost his closest ally in Europe. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “the victory of light over darkness”. In his first post-election press conference, Magyar played down expectations of any dramatic rupture with Moscow. “If Vladimir Putin calls, I’ll pick up the phone,” he said, adding: “We cannot change geography.” During the campaign, however, he framed the vote as a choice between east and west, and Hungarians decisively chose the western path. The incoming PM is not keen on Ukraine joining the EU any time soon and all eyes are on what terms he sets for lifting Orbán’s veto of a crucial €90bn loan for Ukraine. “He was extremely cautious on this, pre-election,” said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia group consultancy. “But without the need to appease Fidesz voters, Hungary will gradually move into the European mainstream.” *** Mourning for the global Maga movement Donald Trump, Orbán’s other superpower backer, invested unusual amounts of political capital in keeping Orbán in power. Hungary has, after all, been a laboratory for the global Maga movement and offered the Trumpian project in the US a blueprint. The loss of the movement’s spiritual leader and Hungarian stronghold is a blow. Conversely, as Robert Tait suggested, it carries “symbolic and psychological significance for American politics” out of all proportion for Hungary’s modest size and distance from the US. Orbán’s ejection could interrupt Trump’s culture war against liberal democracy in Europe, too. It deprives the European far right of a network of Orbán-funded patronage via thinktanks and research bodies. Yet Cas Mudde, a political scientist who has devoted more time than most to studying the far right, cautioned against assuming that Hungary’s election marks the start of a trend and that a similar defeat for the eurosceptic far right can be expected for example in the French presidential election next year. Hungary’s contest was fought principally on domestic issues. Nevertheless, the outcome disproved the fatalistic discourse that “wildly overstates” the weakness of democracy. Another bonus Mudde noted: there are, for now, no European far-right disrupters of Orbán’s stature who can fill his shoes. *** Lessons for liberals Democrats and progressives should draw the right conclusions from Magyar’s win, says Zsuzsanna Végh, of the German Marshall Fund of the United States thinktank. “While this was a very consequential election, the result offers no forecast for other European elections in the coming year. Orbán’s defeat was driven first and foremost by domestic factors such as the cost of living.” As sociologist Tibor Dessewffy, of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, put it: “It turns out that hospital supplies mattered more to voters in Hungary than conspiracy theories about Brussels.” For many progressives, however, the nearly 80% turnout and emphatic margin of victory in Hungary is uplifting. It shows that if people are galvanised to oppose authoritarianism, they will. Tellingly, Végh says, Magyar veered away from far-right topics or attempts to outflank populist discourse, focusing instead on the cost of living, healthcare and other domestic issues. Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee is nevertheless hopeful that Hungarian voters have rolled back the “forces of darkness”. Whether Orbán’s defeat ignites a fire across the continent could become clear within months. The slate of key elections next year includes Italy, Spain, Poland and France. As Polly advised, progressives should probably make the most of the good news now. To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.