ISRAEL, LEBANON AGREE CEASEFIRE
In Washington, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire after two days of direct talks. Notably, the agreement requires a “complete cessation” of fire by Hezbollah.
They further agreed “with the guidance of the United States” to create “pilot zones” in which Lebanese armed forces – which have struggled to contain Hezbollah – “will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors”, a joint statement said.
Further talks were planned in the week of Jun 22, with a view toward reaching a “comprehensive agreement”.
Israel and Hezbollah, however, have continued to trade fire, with Hezbollah claiming missile attacks on northern Israel on Wednesday and Lebanon saying Israeli strikes in the south killed at least nine people, including two paramedics.
Israeli troops are staging their deepest ground offensive into Lebanon in two decades.
A truce to halt the fighting in Lebanon was meant to take hold on Apr 17 but has never been observed.
“PLAYING WITH FIRE”
Kuwait’s military condemned the drone strike on its airport as an act of “criminal Iranian aggression”. India’s foreign ministry said the one fatality was an Indian national.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards denied attacking the airport and said it was “an error in the American Patriot systems, which landed on the terminal after failing to intercept Iranian missiles”.
The Revolutionary Guards also accused US forces of provoking a response by targeting a tanker and a communications tower on the country’s Qeshm Island.
The fresh attacks constitute one of the more severe tests yet of the Apr 8 ceasefire that paused more than a month of war sparked by the US-Israeli bombing of Iran, and has largely held despite sporadic exchanges of fire.
Trump played down the renewed hostilities saying “in that part of the world ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran meanwhile of “playing with fire”.
“Iran surely knows what the (US) president has said, that if necessary, there’ll be a full-scale return to military action,” Netanyahu said in an interview with US channel CNBC.
Kuwait suspended air traffic and diverted arriving planes to other destinations following the drone attack on the airport, but later restarted Kuwait Airways flights.
The international airport has been targeted several times during the war, and had only fully resumed operations on Monday.
Hassan Sheikh, a 40-year-old Pakistani resident of Kuwait who lives near the airport, said he heard explosions throughout the night, adding: “For the first time, my children felt how serious the situation was.”