Paris (France) (AFP) – The latest developments in the Middle East war:
– **Trump warning**
President Donald Trump said Friday that US warships are being reloaded with weaponry to strike Iran if talks in Pakistan fail to produce a deal, in an interview with the New York Post. “We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made — even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart,” the Post quoted Trump as saying. “And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”
– **Hezbollah fires on Israel**
The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired around 30 projectiles into Israel on Friday, reporting that some strikes caused damage. Air‑raid sirens were heard across northern Israel.
– **Iran sets talks conditions**
Iran’s parliament speaker said a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets were the conditions for the start of negotiations with the United States. “Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the parties have yet to be implemented: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets prior to the commencement of negotiations,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote in a post on X in English.
– **Israeli strike kills Lebanon personnel**
An Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh on Friday killed at least 10 State Security personnel, a source from the government agency told AFP.
– **Israel ‘dismantles’ Hezbollah sites**
The Israeli military said it had “dismantled” more than 4,300 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon since fighting with the militant group began last month. Lebanon’s health ministry reports that at least 1,888 people have been killed in the country — including 163 children — since the fighting erupted on March 2.
– **Vance leaves for talks**
Vice President JD Vance departed Washington for US-Iran peace talks being held in Pakistan, after each side accused the other of breaking the terms of their two-week ceasefire agreement. “We’re going to try to have a positive negotiation,” Vance told reporters. “If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand. If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
– **Hezbollah warns Beirut govt**
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem urged the Lebanese government to stop giving “free concessions” to Israel, with the two governments due to begin their own 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 Israeli strikes that killed more than 300 people in Lebanon on Wednesday as “bloody criminality.”
– **Lebanon in food crisis**
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said the entire food system in Lebanon was reeling from the conflict, with prices surging and supply chains disrupted as Israel continues its offensive. “What we’re witnessing is not just a displacement crisis: it is rapidly becoming a food security crisis,” said Allison Oman, the WFP’s country director in Lebanon.
– **Hezbollah targets Israeli base**
Hezbollah said it had targeted Israel’s Ashdod naval base with missiles, two days after the deadly Israeli strikes on Beirut, which Iran and Hezbollah insist violated the US-Iranian ceasefire agreement. “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.
– **Israel urged to stop Beirut attacks**
European and Arab states have pressured Israel to stop targeting Beirut, a Western diplomat told AFP. The diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss sensitive matters, said there was “ongoing diplomatic pressure from European states, Gulf states and Egypt on Israel to prevent renewed Israeli airstrikes on Beirut” following Wednesday’s attack.
– **Turkey aid to Iran**
The Red Cross and Turkey’s Red Crescent have dispatched an aid convoy to Iran, as the organisation warned of a “desperate” humanitarian situation. “Humanitarian needs in Iran are extremely high,” International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) spokesperson Scott Craig told AFP shortly before the convoy departed from the outskirts of Ankara.
– **Saudi refinery shut**
French energy giant TotalEnergies said it had shut down a major refinery on the eastern Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia after it was damaged during the war. The Saudi energy ministry had announced Thursday “multiple attacks” recently on its oil and gas sites, including the SATORP refinery, a joint venture owned by TotalEnergies and the Saudi state-owned Aramco group.
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© 2024 AFP
