The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, which had been due to expire on Sunday, was extended by three weeks on Thursday following a second round of White House talks that drew together Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and President Trump himself. The deal was announced via a Truth Social post in which Trump declared the meeting had gone “very well.”

The initial ten-day ceasefire had only come into effect on 16 April, brokered in the early weeks of the broader Iran war. Lebanon had requested a significant extension, and the outcome delivered it. Trump used the moment to signal his ambition for something larger, saying he hoped to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House “in the near future” to formalise a permanent peace between two countries that have officially been at war since 1948.

Rubio credited Trump’s personal involvement as decisive. “The president wanted to be personally involved and glad he was, because it made it possible to get this extension, and it gives everybody time to continue to work on what’s going to be permanent peace,” Rubio said after the meeting concluded.

But the extension immediately ran into questions of enforceability. Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told CNN the extension was “not 100%,” pointing to Hezbollah’s ongoing rocket fire as evidence that the Lebanese government does not control the group. Even as the ink dried on the agreement, both sides conducted military strikes.

Despite the ceasefire framework, an Israeli strike on south Lebanon killed three people on Thursday, according to the Lebanese health ministry. An earlier Israeli strike on Wednesday had killed one journalist and seriously injured another, prompting Lebanese Prime Minister to accuse Israel of war crimes. The pattern underscores that the ceasefire is observed selectively, if at all, at the operational level.

Hezbollah responded by firing a rocket salvo at the Shtula settlement in northern Israel, issuing a statement that framed the attack as defensive retaliation for Israel’s targeting of the town of Yater in southern Lebanon. The exchange of fire during the diplomatic talks in Washington illustrated exactly the problem Danon had raised: Hezbollah operates independently of the Lebanese state framework that signed onto the ceasefire.

The US naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz remained in force on Day 56, and Trump escalated the rhetoric around it, vowing the US would destroy any vessel laying mines in the strait. The order tracks with earlier reporting that US military officials are actively developing plans to expand targeting of Iranian capabilities in the waterway if the broader ceasefire collapses.

Analyst Hassan Ahmadian offered a contrarian read, arguing the US posture in the Strait is not a purely economic strategy but a repositioning of forces for a potential fresh round of conflict. Tehran’s senior officials have blamed the blockade directly for the stall in negotiations, framing the US naval presence as an act of aggression incompatible with good-faith talks.

Iran’s leadership also pushed back against Trump’s assertions that the regime is internally fractured. President Masoud Pezeshkian, parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and judiciary head Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei issued coordinated denials, presenting a unified front that directly contradicted Trump’s public claims of a divided government in Tehran.

Former US Ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli offered a cautionary counter-assessment: Iran has the capacity to store or sell oil through alternative channels and is prepared to absorb prolonged sanctions pressure. Ereli warned that the pressure campaign could outlast both Trump’s political patience and US domestic public support, creating a strategic mismatch between Washington’s stated ambitions and the timeline required to achieve them.

In a notable clarification, Trump stated Thursday that the US would not use a nuclear weapon against Iran, walking back the ambiguity created by a social media post days earlier in which he threatened to “erase Iranian civilisation.” That post had prompted widespread international condemnation and allegations of genocidal intent.

The USS George H.W. Bush carrier strike group arrived in the Middle East on Thursday, bringing the total number of American carrier strike groups operating in the region to three. The deployment represents an extraordinary concentration of US naval power and signals that Washington is maintaining its military options even while pursuing ceasefire diplomacy.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz sharpened the pressure from the Israeli side, stating publicly that Israel was “prepared to resume the war” and was awaiting a green light from Washington to strike Iran and “complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty.” Israel separately denied reports from Iranian state media that airstrikes had been conducted over Tehran, with an Israeli security source telling AFP that no airstrikes were underway despite Iranian air defence systems reportedly being activated over the capital.

Brent crude climbed above 06 per barrel on Thursday following tit-for-tat vessel captures in the Strait of Hormuz, representing a nearly five percent surge to 06.80 by early morning GMT. This marks the first time the benchmark has traded above 00 in two weeks and reflects acute market anxiety about the durability of any ceasefire and the continued closure of Hormuz shipping lanes.

When asked Thursday whether Americans should expect higher fuel costs, Trump acknowledged they would be paying more “for a little while.” The candid admission contrasts with the administration’s framing of the blockade as a limited and targeted pressure tool rather than a broad economic disruption.

Pope Leo XIV issued a public condemnation of the killing of protesters in Iran and called for restraint, adding a significant moral voice to an increasingly polarised diplomatic landscape. Separately, Secretary of State Rubio confirmed the US would not move to bar Iran’s national football team from the FIFA World Cup, dismissing speculation that Washington had sought to use the tournament as another pressure lever against Tehran.

On Capitol Hill, more than a dozen Democratic senators and representatives urged the Trump administration to pause deportations of Iranian nationals, warning that nearly 12,000 students and others in the US could face persecution or direct danger if compelled to return to a country at war. The calls for protection reflect a domestic political dimension of the conflict that the White House has not yet formally addressed.