Middle East crisis live: Lebanon’s prime minister condemns latest attacks by Israel as ‘collective punishment’ of peaceful civilians

• Benjamin Netanyahu said he has given orders to the Israeli army to seize control of 70% of the Gaza Strip in a move that threatens to torpedo an already fragile ceasefire and create catastrophic humanitarian conditions in the already devastated territory. Speaking at a conference in an occupied West Bank settlement, Netanyahu, who is struggling for his political survival before elections in the next few months, spelled out the extent of Israel’s territorial goals. The Israeli prime minister said: “We are currently squeezing Hamas. We now control 60% of the territory in the strip. You know, we were at 50, we moved to 60. My directive is to move to … 70%.” Here’s our report.

• Lebanon’s prime minister said “nothing can justify” Israel’s ongoing assault on the south of his country, and reissued his calls for an immediate ceasefire. “Nothing can justify the ongoing assaults on my regions of Tyre and Nabatieh and the destruction of their historical landmarks, nor the continuous threats targeting our peaceful people there, nor the repeated calls for them to leave their homes and abandon their livelihoods,” Nawaf Salam wrote on X. He said Israel’s continued bombardment amounts to collective punishment condemned by all international norms and laws”, and strengthen “our resolve for the necessity of an immediate ceasefire, working toward a complete Israeli withdrawal from our land”.

• Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing a source close to the negotiating team, said on Thursday that the text of a potential memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US had not yet been finalised or confirmed. It followed several media reports that the two sides had reached the agreement to, among other things, extend the ceasefire and launch negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme – but were still waiting for Donald Trump to give final approval.

• It came after Trump circulated a draft peace agreement among allies including Israel. In an attempt to speed up the negotiations, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, will fly to Washington on Friday to meet his US counterpart, Marco Rubio.

• Meanwhile, Iranian state tv reported that Iranian forces intercepted and destroyed a US aircraft near Iran’s southern Bushehr province. Iran’s Mehr news agency is also reporting that Iranian armed forces had fired warning shots at four vessels near the strait of Hormuz that were “attempting to pass through the strait without coordination”.

• US treasury secretary Bessent said he had spoken with the Omani ambassador, who “assured” him that there are no plans to toll the strait of Hormuz. Bessent told reporters at the White House briefing that Donald Trump “wanted to punctuate freedom of navigation in the strait” when he threatened to “blow up” US ally Oman on Wednesday.

• Asked whether the US and Iran have struck a deal, Bessent was vague. “The teams have been going back and forth,” he said, adding that Trump has “made it very clear that he has several red lines” and is “not going to take a bad deal”. “Everything depends on what the president wants to do and president Trump is not going to make a bad deal for the American people,” he added.

Further to that last post, Iranian state tv is reporting that it was a US aircraft that Iranian forces intercepted and destroyed, citing local officials.

There’s as yet been no confirmation from the US.

Iranian air defences have intercepted and destroyed a “hostile aircraft” in Iran’s southern Bushehr province in the past hour, state media reports.

“The incident that occurred tonight was related to the destruction of a hostile aircraft,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted the governor of Jam County, Masoud Tangestani, as saying. “The city is now in a normal situation.”

Iran’s Mehr news agency is reporting that Iranian armed forces have fired warning shots at four vessels near the strait of Hormuz.

The vessels were “attempting to pass through the strait without coordination”, the agency said in a post on Telegram.

I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike south of Beirut on Thursday killed a woman and two children, after Israel’s army said it “precisely struck” the capital without identifying the target.

“The Israeli enemy strike on the town of Choueifat led to a final toll of three martyrs including a woman and her baby daughter, and a child of Syrian nationality, in addition to wounding 15 people including three children and five women,” the health ministry said in a statement.

Iran’s Fars news agency is reporting that the Iranian armed forces fired missiles from the southern regions of the country towards “specific targets” a short while ago.

It added that the exact destination of the missiles was not yet clear.

I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

Lebanon’s prime minister has slammed Israel’s expanded offensive in the south of the country, which he said amounts to “collective punishment condemned by all international norms and laws”.

“Nothing can justify the ongoing assaults on my regions of Tyre and Nabatieh and the destruction of their historical landmarks, nor the continuous threats targeting our peaceful people there, nor the repeated calls for them to leave their homes and abandon their livelihoods,” Nawaf Salam wrote on X.

He said the attacks strengthen “our resolve for the necessity of an immediate ceasefire, working toward a complete Israeli withdrawal from our land”.

My colleague Oliver Holmes looks at how Donald Trump’s book The Art of the Deal could shed light on the president’s negotiation tactics in the war with Iran.

The terms of a purported 60-day deal to negotiate peace in the Iran war have trapped the Trump administration between mounting economic costs ahead of midterm elections and anger from Republican hawks who accuse the US government of surrendering to Iran.

The public rift between Trump and Senate Republicans over his shift toward diplomacy with Iran has also been matched within his administration, where the dovish JD Vance and traditional neoconservative Marco Rubio have been forced to pirouette between Trump’s policies as he shifts to exit the war as soon as possible.

US media outlets reported on Thursday that US and Iranian negotiators had reached an agreement on a 60-day memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would extend a ceasefire and launch negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme. But Iran has not confirmed a deal, and skirmishes have increased in the strait of Hormuz. The reported conditions for the negotiations appear to favour Washington even as Tehran has indicated it would demand further concessions to open the strategic waterway.

If that deal has been made, the White House is not in a rush to ink it, as Donald Trump seeks to cushion the political blowback of an interim agreement to start negotiations with the Iranians. “The president relayed to the mediators that he wants a couple of days to think about it,” a US official told Axios.

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent was asked about the skirmishes and ceasefire violations that have taken place this week. He said: “President Trump always prefers a peace deal, so everything we have done thus far has been defensive, and at present that is what we will continue doing.

“We can’t talk about reconstruction in Iran until we reach a peace deal.”

Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing a source close to the negotiating team, said on Thursday the text of a potential memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States had not yet been finalised or confirmed.

The source said Tehran had not informed the Pakistani mediator that the text was complete and would notify both the mediator and the public once finalised, adding that western media reports claiming the agreement had already been finalised were false.

Bessent said that Donald Trump “wanted to punctuate freedom of navigation in the strait [of Hormuz]” when he threatened to “blow up” Oman on Wednesday.

Bessent said he spoke with the Omani ambassador, who “assured” him that there are no plans to toll the critical waterway.

“I told him that this was a non-starter and he didn’t want to risk the Omani individuals or Omani organisations being sanctioned,” he added.

The US president made the extraordinary threat to the US’s ally after reports of talks between Iran and Oman about jointly charging a toll for ships passing through the strait, which has been all but closed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.

A reminder that, in addition to Oman’s decades-long military and economic ties with the US, the Gulf nation of 5.3 million people has played a mediation role in the war and has itself come under attack from Tehran.

Bessent added on Thursday:

Our countries have had 200 years of good relations. [Trump] wants to have another 200 more.

Asked whether the US and Iran have struck a deal, Bessent was vague.

“The teams have been going back and forth,” he said, adding that Trump has “made it very clear that he has several red lines” and is “not going to take a bad deal”.

“Everything depends on what the president wants to do and president Trump is not going to make a bad deal for the American people,” he added.

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent is leading the White House press briefing on Thursday.

He’s sure to be asked about the draft peace agreement shared by Donald Trump. I’ll bring you any relevant key lines here.

Further to that, a senior Arab official directly involved in mediating peace talks between Washington and Tehran has told NBC News that US and Iranian negotiators agreed to the terms of a truce deal three days ago, but both sides have delayed finalising and announcing it.

“It was already closed in Doha three days ago, now everyone is playing a game of chicken and egg,” the official said, describing the delays as “frustrating”.

Negotiators agreed a deal but had to go back to their leaders for approval, with Donald Trump’s approval still pending, they said.

Asked whether the US president is still pushing for Iran’s Arab neighbours to normalise relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords as part of a deal, the official told NBC News that Trump has brought it up.

“Someone is misunderstanding the situation in a big way,” the Arab official said. “We should be paid back, not paying the price.”

US sources have also confirmed to Al Jazeera that US and Iranian negotiators have agreed on a framework for a 60-day ceasefire extension deal but it still needs Donald Trump’s approval.

The sources confirmed the two sides had agreed on a memorandum of understanding to extend the truce and launch negotiations for a final deal to end the war.

This is in line with the report we brought you earlier from Axios, which cited two US officials and a regional source involved in the mediation efforts.

The Associated Press hears the same from a US official, and Reuters from four sources familiar with the matter.

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN chief António Guterres, has said that the United Nations is trying to “get a better understanding of what is official and what is not official”, amid reports that a memorandum of understanding has been reached between the US and Iran.

In comments reported by Al Jazeera, Dujarric told reporters that the UN is “very worried and concerned” about exchanges of fire between the two countries this week. He added:

We encourage both parties to respect the ceasefire that they had announced.