Middle East crisis live: Trump warns of fresh strikes on Iran if talks fail as Vance heads to Pakistan

Britain will host further talks on reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane with a coalition of countries next week.

The meeting will continue the UK government’s efforts to restore freedom of navigation to the strait, which provides shipping routes for oil and gas.

It comes after the Prime Minister spoke to Donald Trump about the need for a “practical plan” to get ships going through the area amid suggestions Iran wants to charge vessels for passage.

An official with knowledge of the planning has said the meeting is expected to look for ways to support a sustainable end to the conflict and focus on increasing international diplomatic pressure on Iran to reopen the strait.

This includes exploring coordinated economic and political measures, such as sanctions, and working with the International Maritime Organisation to secure the release of thousands of ships and sailors trapped in the strait.

There has to be a ceasefire in Lebanon and it is “not acceptable” to be “negotiating under bombardment”, the country’s minister of social affairs has said, accusing Israel of committing war crimes by targeting civilians.

Haneen Sayed told Sky News that “what happened two days ago was really unbelievable”. In a punishing wave of strikes across Lebanon, Israel killed more than 300 people and injured over 1,000 others on Wednesday.

Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, accused Israel in a statement of targeting “densely populated residential neighbourhoods” and killing unarmed civilians in breach of international law.

“It goes beyond what anyone expected,” Sayed said, adding that it’s a “huge calamity”.

Despite international condemnation, Israel has continued to bombard Lebanon since, insisting that the country was never included in the ceasefire agreed by the US and Iran, even though Iran and Pakistan – which helped broker the deal – said it was.

Lebanon and Iran are demanding that Israel must agree to a ceasefire before talks between Lebanon and Israel can begin. Israel, meanwhile, has insisted that “talks will be held under fire”.

Sayed said that was an unacceptable expectation.

Negotiating under bombardment and, you know, bombs falling over our heads is not acceptable. So that’s a condition.

There “has to be a ceasefire”, she said.

She also accused Israel of committing war crimes.

I can say war crimes have been committed. There is no explainable reason why that many ... civilians and health workers are targeted. Entire buildings were flattened, as you know.

People are still burying their dead, she said, after the country observed a day of mourning on Thursday.

Iran-backed Hezbollah fired around 30 projectiles from Lebanon into Israel on Friday, the Israeli military said, reporting that some strikes caused damage.

Air-raid sirens were activated across northern Israel near the Lebanese border, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have continued to exchange fire despite a truce in the broader conflict involving Iran.

Israeli emergency services reported a strike in Safed, where a direct hit damaged several vehicles, AFP reported.

The emergency services reported additional impacts in the Galilee region, including in Baana and Deir al-Assad, where a building was hit.

European airports have said jet fuel shortages could hit the summer holiday season, if oil supplies do not start to flow through the strait of Hormuz within the next three weeks.

Airports Council International (ACI) Europe wrote to Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU transport commissioner, saying the bloc is three weeks away from shortages.

The warning will raise concerns of a risk of flight or holiday cancellations if the US and Israel’s war on Iran continues. Oil prices have soared since the start of March after Iran effectively closed the strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for exports from the Gulf, in retaliation.

Donald Trump this week announced a ceasefire, but Brent crude oil prices remained at about $96 per barrel on Friday amid concerns over whether it would hold. Before the war, oil traded at about $72.

Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun said on Friday that 13 state security personnel were killed in an Israeli strike on a governmental building in the southern city of Nabatieh.

In a statement, Aoun condemned continued Israeli attacks and said targeting state institutions would not deter Lebanon from defending its sovereignty, Reuters reported.

An AFP photographer saw extensive damage at the site, where a fire was still raging.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Friday that two previously agreed measures, a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets, must be implemented before negotiations begin.

In a post on X on Friday, Qalibaf said the steps were part of commitments made between the parties and warned that talks should not start until they were fulfilled, amid mounting disputes over ceasefire terms and continued hostilities in Lebanon.

Pope Leo has issued a thinly-veiled criticism of the US-Israeli war on Iran, saying “military action will not create space for freedom”.

Writing on X, he also said that God “does not bless any conflict”.

He said:

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.

Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.

US negotiators intend to request the release of Americans detained in Iran as part of upcoming talks aimed at ending the war, according to media reports.

The Washington Post cited people briefed on the plans in its report.

Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday called on the Lebanese government to stop giving “free concessions” to Israel, with the two governments due to begin negotiations in Washington next week.

“We will not accept a return to the previous situation, and we call on officials to stop offering free concessions,” Qassem said in a written message broadcast on the party’s Al-Manar TV, in which he also denounced the “bloody criminality on Wednesday,” when Israeli strikes killed more than 300 people in Lebanon.

US trade representative Jamieson Greer said on Friday that the United States is trying to have a stable relationship with China, but if Beijing is going to be involved with Iran in a way that goes against US interests, that would complicate matters.

In an interview on CNBC, Greer said he expected president Donald Trump to have a good meeting next month with Chinese president Xi Jinping but not every challenge with China is resolved.

Hezbollah said it had targeted Israel’s Ashdod naval base with missiles, two days after deadly Israeli airstrikes on Beirut left more than 300 people dead.

“In response to the enemy’s violation of the ceasefire and its repeated attacks on Beirut, and after the Resistance adhered to the ceasefire while the enemy did not, the fighters of the Islamic Resistance targeted... the naval base in the port of Ashdod with missiles,” the group said in a statement.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs, Majid Takht Ravanchi, said Tehran does not want a ceasefire that will allow the US and Israel to attack again.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported remarks he made during a meeting today with foreign ambassadors and heads of organisations in Tehran.

A translation of his remarks read: “We do not want a ceasefire that allows the aggressor enemy to re-arm and launch another aggression.”

He also claimed that “it has been agreed that Iran’s 10-point plan will be the basis for negotiations”.

Gulf states rethink security in light of US-Israel war on Iran

Gulf nations will seek to add security partners as they rebuild battered economies after the US and Israel’s war on Iran and deal with an emboldened Tehran.

The Gulf will have to live with a continuing threat from the regime in Iran and its remaining missile arsenal. American bases on their soil turned them into targets for Iran, as it retaliated against a joint attack by the US and Israel.

But, the countries say they can’t tolerate Iran keeping control of the strait of Hormuz, through which most of their trade flows. In agreeing to a ceasefire this week, Iran insisted it would retain the hold it took during the war over the waterway, which would allow Tehran to throttle the Gulf at will. The future of the strait will be one of the main disputes to be negotiated between the United States and Iran, in talks in Islamabad due to start as soon as Friday.

Gulf nations trumpeted success in largely intercepting the Iranian barrage of missiles and drones over the five weeks of the conflict, showing they can defend themselves.

The countries are, however, split over future relations with Iran, with a hawkish grouping led by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain taking a harder line, and other nations hoping for peace through renewed ties with Tehran, experts say.

Read the full report here:

The Israeli military has claimed to have destroyed more than 200 Hezbollah rocket launchers since the start of the conflict.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement online that it destroyed more than 200 rocket launchers, including approximately 1,300 launch tubes, belonging to the Iran-backed militant group since 2 March.

Keir Starmer said he used a call with Donald Trump to set out the views of Gulf states, the Press Association reported.

“I had a discussion with president Trump last night and set out to him the views of the region here, these Gulf states are the neighbours of Iran, and therefore, if the ceasefire is to hold – and we hope it will - it has to involve them,” the UK prime minister said in Qatar, where he was on the final leg of his Middle East tour.

“They have very strong views on the strait of Hormuz. We spent most of the time on the call talking about the practical plan that’s going to be needed to get navigation through the strait and the role that the UK is playing.”

Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s senior diplomatic envoy, said on X that his country will review regional and international ties in light of attacks by Iran to “determine who can be relied upon”.

The UAE’s defence ministry said yesterday that its air defences have intercepted 537 ballistic missiles, 26 cruise missiles and 2,256 drones since the start of the war.

Keir Starmer said he is “fed up” with energy bills going up in the UK “because of the actions of Putin and Trump”.

The remarks, made during an interview with ITV, were a rare display of frustration by the UK prime minister who seldom calls out Donald Trump directly in public. And, in this instance, he has linked the US president with Vladimir Putin.

Starmer is due to return to the UK today after visiting allies in the Gulf for talks on how to support the US-Iran ceasefire and secure a permanent reopening of the strait of Hormuz. After travelling to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, his last stop is Qatar.

You can follow our UK politics blog where my colleague Andrew Sparrow is reporting the latest on the impact of war on the UK and other related news:

Pictures: Islamabad on high alert ahead of talks between Iranian and US negotiators

The UN children’s agency, Unicef, reported that nearly 600 children have been killed or injured in Lebanon since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war on 2 March.

More than 30 children were killed and nearly 150 injured by the wave of bombings carried out on Wednesday by Israeli troops, Unicef said.

In a statement, the agency said:

Unicef is receiving reports of children being pulled from under the rubble, while others remain missing and separated from their families. Many are experiencing trauma, having lost loved ones, their homes, and any sense of safety. Across the country, more than one million people have been uprooted, including an estimated 390,000 children, many for the second, third, or even fourth time.

International humanitarian law is clear: civilians, including children, must be protected at all times.

The Israeli military has repeated the claim that Hezbollah is using ambulances for military purposes.

In a post on X, Avichay Adraee, the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), accused Hezbollah of making “extensive military use” of ambulances, without providing evidence.

A few weeks ago, my colleague, William Christou, spoke to medics in Lebanon, visited destroyed medical centres and inspected damaged ambulances to explore the IDF’s claim. He found that none of the sites showed signs of military use. Lebanese healthcare workers and officials say Israel is deliberately targeting medical workers and facilities, including through the use of double-tap strikes. You can read the report here:

Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said he urged his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, to negotiate “in good faith” during talks with the US in Islamabad.

Albares said he spoke to Araghchi “the day before yesterday” and had asked him to halt “all missile and drone launches”.

“I encourage Iran – this is what I conveyed to the Iranian foreign minister – to take part in those negotiations and to participate in good faith,” he said, according to the AFP news agency.

He again condemned Israel over its continued strikes on Lebanon, saying the attacks were a “disgrace on the conscience of humanity”.

He added: “The level of violence, the violation of international law and international humanitarian law by Israel is unacceptable.”

UK defence minister Luke Pollard said there is no truth in Donald Trump’s claims that the Royal Navy is “too old” and that its aircraft carriers “don’t work” and are “toys”.

“We’ve got a strong Royal Navy,” he told BBC Breakfast.

“HMS Sutherland, the Type 23 frigate behind me here, is crewed by brilliant men and women. We’ve got a globally deployed navy at the moment.”

Pollard added that the UK has a “unique convening role” that it can use to bring its friends and allies together to work out solutions to reopen the strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, has deleted a post on X in which he called Israel “cancerous” and a “curse for humanity”.

The post appeared on X last night but has since been deleted, Reuters news agency reported.

In the post, Asif wrote that as “peace talks are underway in Islamabad, genocide is being committed in Lebanon”. He added that “innocent citizens are being killed by Israel, first Gaza, then Iran and now Lebanon, bloodletting continues unabated”.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said the remarks were “outrageous”. In a post on X, it said: “This is not a statement that can be tolerated from any government, especially not from one that claims to be a neutral arbiter for peace.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian teams deployed to the Middle East to bolster air defences in the region have shot down Iranian Shahed drones.

“We demonstrated to some countries how to work with interceptors,” the Ukrainian president said in a post on X.

“Did we destroy Iranian “shaheds?” Yes, we did. Did we do it in just one country? No, in several. And in my view, this is a success.”

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces took part in active operations using domestically produced, battle-tested interceptor drones.

“This was not about a training mission or exercises, but about support in building a modern air defence system that can actually work,” he added.

Iran is taking steps to keep control over maritime traffic through the strait of Hormuz in order to exert pressure on the US, thinktank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said.

The effect is that oil prices will remain high so that Iran goes into upcoming negotiations with the US with more leverage to extract concessions, ISW reports.

According to ISW, Iranian officials have said Iran will not allow more than 15 vessels per day to transit through the strait. Prior to the war, up to 140 vessels a day travelled through the strait.

The Iranian Ports and Maritime Organization published a graphic on April 8 instructing ships to follow designated entry and exit routes in coordination with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy to transit the strait. These routes move international maritime traffic into Iranian-controlled waters. The graphic warns that ships risk hitting mines outside of these routes.”

Indonesia has said it has submitted a joint statement on peacekeeper security with dozens of allied nations to the United Nations after three of its blue helmets were killed in Lebanon.

In the joint statement, the countries urged the UN Security Council to conduct a thorough investigation into the incidents in southern Lebanon that killed three Indonesian peacekeepers and wounded several others, including from France, Ghana, Nepal, and Poland.

The foreign ministry in Jakarta said 73 countries and UN observer nations supported the statement, delivered by Indonesia’s permanent representative to the UN, Umar Hadi, in New York.

“The safety and security of UN peacekeepers are non-negotiable. We urge the UN Security Council to use all available instruments to strengthen protection for peacekeeping forces amid an increasingly dangerous situation,” the ministry quoted Umar as saying.

“Troop-contributing countries also call for an end to violence in Lebanon, de-escalation of tensions, and encourage all parties to return to the negotiating table to achieve a peaceful settlement,” it added.

Three Indonesian peacekeepers died in two separate blasts in southern Lebanon in late March. A third blast less than a week later – inside a UN facility in southern Lebanon – injured three more Indonesian soldiers.

JD Vance heads to Pakistan this week with orders from Donald Trump to turn the shaky Iran ceasefire into a lasting peace deal.

For the 41-year-old Vance, who has kept a notably low profile during the Middle East conflict, it will be one of the biggest moments of his career. But the man widely regarded as a leading contender in the 2028 US presidential election will face huge challenges too when talks begin Saturday in Islamabad.

“I cannot think of a case where the vice president ran formal negotiations like this,” Aaron Wolf Mannes, a lecturer at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and an expert on the American vice presidency’s role in foreign policy, told the AFP news agency.

This is high risk, high reward.”

Vance built his political brand as an avowed anti-interventionist who wanted to keep America out of any more foreign wars. That has made for a difficult balancing act after Trump launched the Iran war.

The New York Times reported this week that in discussions behind closed doors in the weeks before the war, Vance argued against military action, saying it could cause regional chaos and split Trump’s Maga coalition.

But Vance now suddenly finds himself as Trump’s diplomatic closer for an Iran deal.

Vance will be accompanied by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

One theory of why the vice-president is leading these efforts is that the Iranians may view him as a more likely partner for diplomacy, given his widely reported opposition to the war and general doubts about US interventionism.

“If he can get something that papers it over without dealing with real issues, that’s probably enough,” says Mannes.

But if nothing good comes of this, it raises questions about his competence, which is not going to help him electorally. And of course Rubio’s right there as a potential rival for 2028.”

The White House has warned US government staff against improperly leveraging their positions to place bets in futures markets in an email, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters is reporting, citing sources.

Some of Trump’s major policy decisions have been preceded by well-timed bets, leading some experts to question whether information had somehow leaked ahead of time.

Shortly ahead the ceasefire announcement earlier this week, a new group of accounts on prediction market platform Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed trades betting there’d be an announcement about a halt in fighting for 7 April. Some quickly pocketed awards, which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits combined.

Exchange data and Reuters calculations also showed an unidentified trader or traders bet $500m on Brent and WTI crude futures in a one-minute period shortly before Trump called a five-day delay on 23 March 23 attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure, after which oil prices fell 15%.

“While he [Trump] seeks a strong and profitable stock market for everyone, members of Congress and other government officials should be prohibited from using nonpublic information for financial benefit,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Reuters in a statement.

The International Monetary Fund will lower global growth forecasts due to the Middle East war, its chief said on Thursday, warning of the conflict’s “scarring effects” despite a fragile ceasefire.

“Even in a best case, there will be no neat and clean return to the status quo ante,” IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said.

Georgieva said that – even in the fund’s “most hopeful scenario” – spiralling energy costs, infrastructure damage, supply disruptions and a loss of market confidence meant growth would be less than expected.

The IMF also anticipates having to provide up to $50bn in immediate financial assistance to countries affected by the war, with food insecurity set to affect at least 45 million people.

Given the spillovers from the war, we expect near-term demand for IMF balance-of-payments support to rise by somewhere between $20 billion and $50 billion, with the lower bound prevailing if ceasefire holds.”

Donald Trump has said that right wing influencers Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones are “not ‘MAGA,’ they’re losers”.

The four had been reliable supporters of Trump for most of his presidency, but in recent weeks have spoken out over their opposition to the war in Iran.

In a long post on his Truth Social platform, the president launched highly personal attacks on the four, who are among the most influential voices in the right wing media ecosystem.

As President, I could get them on my side anytime I want to, but when they call, I don’t return their calls because I’m too busy on World and Country Affairs and, after a few times, they go ‘nasty’.”

The war on Iran has widened the cracks in Trump’s already shaky Maga movement, with many commentators and supporters saying that such an operation is a betrayal of Trump’s promise to put America First and extradite the US from messy foreign conflicts.

Carlson on Monday called the president’s rhetoric toward Iran, including an expletive-filled threat on Easter, “vile” on “every level.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones asked on his Info Wars show: “How do we 25th Amendment his ass?” Former Fox News host and popular conservative media personality Megyn Kelly said the recent ceasefire with Iran “sounds very much like surrender,” but conceded that she supported it.

South Korea says senior diplomat Chung Byung-ha will soon depart for Iran as a special envoy to discuss the safety of its citizens and Iran’s chokehold on the strait of Hormuz.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said Friday that Chung plans to push for the freedom of navigation for all vessels, including South Korean.

The ministry earlier said Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi welcomed Seoul’s plan to send a special envoy during a phone call with South Korean foreign minister Cho Hyun on Thursday.

Underlining Iran’s continued control of the Strait of Hormuz, a Botswana-flagged liquified natural gas tanker called the Nidi attempted to travel out of the Persian Gulf via a route ordered by the Revolutionary Guard but suddenly turned around and headed back early Friday, ship-tracking data has shown.

On Thursday, four tankers and three bulk carriers crossed through the Strait of Hormuz, bringing the total number of ships passing through since the ceasefire to at least 12, according to the data firm Kpler.

However, other ships not transmitting their locations may have passed through as well. The strait typically carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows and sees around 140 ships a day pass through it during peace time.

Japan plans to release 20 days’ worth of oil reserves from May, prime minister Sanae Takaichi told a cabinet meeting on Friday, to ensure stable domestic supply as conflict in the region continues disrupts global supply.

Japan is dependent on the Middle East for around 95% of its oil. It began releasing reserves on March 16 unilaterally and in coordination with other nations under a plan to make available enough oil to last 50 days. The new release of 20 days worth is additional.

As of 6 April, Japan had enough oil for 230 days in its reserves, including 143 days worth in its public stockpile.

By May, Japan should be able to secure more than a half of oil imports via routes that do not include the strait of Hormuz, Takaichi said, without naming the sources.

Japan has also contacted suppliers in the US, Malaysia, central Asia - such as in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan - Latin America - including Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico - and Africa such as in Nigeria and Angola.

The government has asked suppliers to sell fuel directly to sectors such as healthcare, transportation and agriculture, including green tea producers, livestock and fisheries, Takaichi said.