Live: US attacks Iran, IRGC retaliates as Lebanon deal advances
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US Vice President JD Vance has announced that Washington has lifted its blockade on Iranian ports as the Strait of Hormuz reopens to commercial shipping.
"Centcom has allowed north of a dozen ships to go through our naval blockade. And so we're also honouring our end of the early part of the agreement," he said.
“CENTCOM has allowed north of a dozen ships to go through our naval blockade. And so we're also honouring our end of the early part of the agreement.”
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) June 18, 2026
US Vice President JD Vance has announced that the United States has lifted its blockade of Iranian ports as the Strait of Hormuz… pic.twitter.com/MJNkxIvLIN
The Iranian negotiation delegation has delayed its departure for talks in Switzerland due to Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, according to a report by Al Mayadeen network.
The team was scheduled to hold initial talks with US officials on Friday to discuss implementing a newly signed ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran. Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar are also slated to take part in the meeting.
Iran's top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, meanwhile, said any breach of the agreement or excessive demands will be met with a strong response.
"We have no doubt about delivering a forceful response if the other side breaks its commitments," he said.
"The task assigned to us by the Supreme Leader is to pursue the fulfilment of the terms and clauses of the agreement."
Israeli forces have shot and killed a Palestinian near the Wadi Gaza bridge in central Gaza, Wafa news agency reported.
The agency said that two Palestinians were wounded after Israeli artillery shelling struck al-Bi’a Street north of Khan Younis.
The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in Gaza has reached more than 1,000 since a US-brokered ceasefire last October, the enclave's health ministry said on Thursday, with at least four people reported killed in the latest strikes.
Medics said an Israeli strike hit a vehicle on the main Omar al-Mokhtar road in Gaza City, killing three, as violence continues despite a new truce push by mediators. The Israeli military said it targeted Hamas fighters.
Later on Thursday, Israeli forces operating near the central area of Gaza killed one person, medics said.
Including the latest incident, the number of Palestinians killed since an October 2025 truce brokered by US President Donald Trump was 1,009, the health ministry said.
An Israeli army reservist on holiday in India, who was accused of war crimes by the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), appears to have fled the country, a lawyer associated with the case told Middle East Eye on Thursday.
According to the lawyer who filed the case and asked for anonymity over security concerns, Eitan Gilboa, a member of Israel's 271st Combat Engineering Battalion, is likely to have left India, where he was vacationing, a few days after the complaint was filed.
The latest development comes just two weeks after the Brussels-based HRF filed a complaint with Indian authorities seeking the arrest of Gilboa for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The organisation said that Gilboa was involved in the demolition of residential areas in Gaza, which he documented in videos and photos that were shared on social media.
Read more: Israeli army reservist 'flees' India after war crimes allegation filed
Iran's Supreme National Security Council said in a statement on Thursday that the country's Persian Gulf Strait Authority will take measures to issue fast authorisations to ships wanting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Tehran and Washington.
Measures on mine clearance will be carried out under the Islamabad MoU, though ships are advised to stick to the path and timing allocated by the authority, the statement published by state media added.
Meanwhile, the maritime security threat level in the Strait of Hormuz has been reduced to moderate, said the US-led Combined Maritime Forces' Joint Maritime Information Centre.
Hezbollah said its fighters were fighting the Israeli military on Thursday as Lebanese state media reported that Israeli strikes in the south killed three people.
Hezbollah's statement came a day after the US and Iran signed an agreement to end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon.
Hezbollah said on Thursday it was fighting "a force of the Israeli enemy army that attempted to advance from the town of Arnoun towards the outskirts of Kfar Tibnit", near the key town of Nabatieh.
"The clashes are still ongoing," it added in the statement released in the late afternoon.
The Israeli army published a map on Thursday of a new expanded zone of control in southern Lebanon, detailing a significant expansion in military occupation and operations, Reuters reported.
Israeli forces have said they will not rule out carrying out attacks beyond occupation lines, challenging the recently signed Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran, which categorically calls for a halt to fighting between Israel and Lebanon.
The first point of the MoU, which ended the US-Israel war on Iran, declares an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon” as well as “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon”.
Israel has so far not ended its attacks on Lebanon and repeatedly rejected calls to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon.
Read more: Israel plans expanded occupation of Lebanon in defiance of US-Iran pact
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the US expects "a complete ceasefire on all fronts", including Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel.
"We encourage everyone in the Middle East Region to maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations to beautifully unfold," Trump wrote on Truth Social, one day after he signed a memorandum of understanding to end a nearly four-month war on Iran.
Member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) are due to convene in New York City on 24 July for a consequential vote on the disciplinary proceedings involving prosecutor Karim Khan, Middle East Eye can reveal.
Multiple diplomatic sources have confirmed that the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), the governing body of the court, decided on Wednesday the date and place of the special session to allow the 125 members of the ICC to vote on allegations of misconduct against the prosecutor.
The bureau, a political body, suspended Khan on 8 June by a qualified majority after disregarding a judicial panel's opinion that found no evidence of misconduct.
The ASP is the competent decision-maker for voting on a final determination of the misconduct allegations and whether to remove him from office. States are asked to vote on whether Khan committed serious misconduct, less serious misconduct or no misconduct at all.
Read more: Exclusive: ICC member states to vote on Karim Khan probe in New York on 24 July
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday that future talks with the US would be held directly, but that did not mean "accepting its views".
“It is obvious that the face-to-face negotiations that will be held in the future will not mean accepting the enemy's point of view,” Khamenei said in a message read on state television, his first reaction to the Iran-US deal ending the war that broke out in late February.
The head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, said on Thursday that Israel's war in Lebanon had "failed" to eliminate the group.
Raad said in a statement that "the enemy's war aimed at crushing the resistance in Lebanon has failed and will not achieve its objectives".
He also called on Lebanese authorities to "adopt a framework for indirect negotiations with the enemy" to stop the fighting.
He said the Israeli military must "fully comply with the cessation of hostilities on land, at sea and in the air, and prepare for and begin withdrawal within 60 days, without any need whatsoever for direct negotiations".
An Israeli minister from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said this week that Israel “will be at war with Syria sooner or later”.
The remarks came in a series of radio interviews given by Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli on Wednesday and Thursday, in which he outlined what he dubbed a "radical Sunni axis of evil" in the Middle East.
“There is no way that a jihadist regime rooted in Isis and al-Qaeda, whose aspiration is the unification of Jerusalem, can live in peace alongside the State of Israel,” the far-right minister said, referring to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government.
Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio on Thursday, Chikli outlined what he considers to be a new anti-Israel alliance made up of Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, which he said worried him far more than Iran and its ceasefire deal with the US.
Read more: Israel 'will be at war with Syria sooner or later', says Likud minister
The US military has allowed at least 12 ships to pass through its naval blockade of Iran's ports following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran, Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday.
"On the blockade, Centcom has allowed north of a dozen ships to go through our naval blockade, and so we're also honouring our end of the early part of the agreement," Vance told journalists, referring to the US military command responsible for the Middle East.
The 60-day period for negotiations between the United States and Iran begins on Thursday, but the agreement between the two sides took effect the day before, Vice President JD Vance said.
"I would say the 60-day period officially started today," Vance told journalists, adding that "the deal started yesterday".
