Live: US strikes Iran again as tensions threaten fragile truce

Tehran's foreign ministry on Wednesday said it was considering a plan for the presidents of the US and Iran to sign the deal ending the war, ahead of an expected ceremony in Switzerland.

"So far, our plans for the Geneva meeting have not changed," ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said.

"Regarding the signing of the memorandum of understanding, one idea is that it be done by the presidents of the two countries, which is currently under review."

If the presidents were to sign the document, he added, "in principle it would be done remotely."

Tehran has previously said the United States and Iran would be represented at the meeting in Switzerland by Vice President JD Vance and parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, respectively.

Iran and the United States will end fighting on all fronts, per MoU details published by Iran's official IRNA news agency on Wednesday, adding both countries to end naval blockades in the region.

Iran's official news agency released details of the deal planned to be signed on Friday, shortly after a US official released a copy of the text.

Details published by IRNA included US commitments to grant Iran access to its frozen funds and end the blockade on its ships and ports while Iran commits to facilitate the return of marine traffic in the Gulf and Gulf of Oman to prewar levels and not to produce or acquire nuclear weapons.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to “bomb the hell” out of Iran if it does not abide by a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the US, adding he was concerned the war could spark an “economic catastrophe” dooming his presidency.

"The one president I did not want to be was the late, great, Herbert Hoover,” Trump said, noting that the stock market rose when he said he was considering ending the war and went down “very big” when he mulled continuing the conflict.

"The stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course,” Trump said, flanked by senior US officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Hoover was the Republican president who entered office in 1929, just before the onset of the Great Depression. Historians and economists say his landmark tariff bill exacerbated the years-long economic downturn.

Read more: Trump justifies Iran deal as a way to prevent 'economic catastrophe'

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the US will leave its military in the Gulf "for a while", after Washington struck a deal with Tehran to end the nearly four-month war in the region.

While speaking to reporters in Paris, Trump added that if other countries have ballistic missiles, it is "a little bit unfair" for Iran to have none.

When US President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iran in late February, Turkish officials found themselves sidelined.

Their repeated attempts to prevent the war proved unsuccessful, and the mood in Ankara was that Trump preferred the counsel of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over that of Turkish leaders.

Three months later, however, Trump once again counted Turkey, alongside Pakistan and Qatar, among the countries that had significantly helped secure a memorandum of understanding with Iran. He also adopted an increasingly combative tone towards Israel.

On Sunday, Tehran and Washington reached an agreement that would extend a fragile ceasefire between the two sides for 60 days and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran blocked when the US and Israel launched the war. 

Turkish officials, speaking to Middle East Eye this week, cautioned that the memorandum of understanding was only a first step toward resolving the US-Iran dispute and would do little more than ease pressure on the Strait of Hormuz.

Read more: Analysis: Turkey emerges unscathed from the Iran war

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that sanctions on Iran would be removed once "they behave."

"As far as sanctions are concerned, at some point, you know, we have sanctions which will never let them rebuild. They would have no money, they would be in poverty, the 91 million people would starve, so something will happen as soon as they behave. When they behave, we're going to let that go. We're going to have to. I put sanctions on a lot of people, and then I let them go," Trump told reporters.

He also suggested that frozen funds could be returned.

"We have taken their money, it's not our money, it's their money, and we froze it. At a certain point in time I guess we're going to have to give it back," Trump said.

"If we didn't give it back, nobody would ever invest in the dollar again."

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Wednesday hailed an understanding reached between Tehran and Washington as a "great victory", calling it a "pivotal point" for Lebanon.

Although the US-Iran deal has not been officially released, American and Iranian officials, as well as mediator Pakistan, have said it includes Lebanon.

"We congratulate the Iranian people, the resistance and the countries and peoples of the region and the world who yearn for independence and freedom on this great victory," Qassem said in a televised address.

He expressed thanks to Iran for "linking the Lebanese arena" to the deal and "forcing Israel to stop its aggression" on the country.

Maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remains at levels before the Iran-US agreement, says the Kpler maritime tracking platform, but there are signs of recovery ahead of Friday's official reopening.

Eight ships carrying raw materials transited the strait on Monday, and six on Tuesday, according to Kpler data updated on Wednesday. The agreement was reached overnight Sunday.

This rate is comparable to the previous week, which saw an average of eight transits per day.

That is well down on the rate of approximately 120 transits per day before the war, according to the maritime information website Lloyd's List.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could use a "softer touch" in Lebanon, in comments made at the close of a G7 Summit in France.

"Netanyahu happens to be a good man, gets a little excited sometimes," Trump told reporters on Wednesday.

"We have a little dispute over Lebanon. I say you can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don't have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that's from Hezbollah."

Trump added that he agreed with the description of Israel as being "the very small partner" of the US.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday told reporters at the G7 meeting in France that the US, in a parallel effort to the US-Iran deal, will discuss Iran's ballistic missiles and proxies with Gulf nations.

At a press conference, Trump said that Syria's leader would like to target Hezbollah with "precision" inside Lebanon.

The president also said that Lebanon's leader is expected to visit Washington in the coming weeks.

A senior Israeli official has questioned whether Israel would have launched its operation against Iran had it known the political consequences in advance amid growing public anger.

"If we had known that these would be the final results of the operation in terms of political habit, it is highly doubtful that we would have embarked on this event," the official was quoted as saying on Israeli channel i24News.

The terms of the deal reached between Iran and the US underline how Israel’s war on Iran has left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing pressure not only from the Islamic Republic, but from inside his own political and security establishment.

Amid sharp Israeli criticism of various government policies regarding the war on Iran, Netanyahu held a press conference on Tuesday where he doubled down on continuing to "neutralise threats in the region".

"For decades, I have been fighting against Iran’s efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons. I can define it as my life’s mission. I have met this challenge to this day, and I will continue to meet it in the future," he said. 

Read more: Israeli official says Iran war may not have been worth launching

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday urged Israel to be a "positive player" for peace in the Middle East, following a deal between Iran and the US.

"Our goal must be to promote lasting, structural solutions that go beyond the logic of short-term truces," Meloni said as the G7 Summit in France came to a close.

"We expect Israel to now act as a positive player in the peace process, and that the inevitable internal debate, also driven by the election campaign, will not jeopardise the difficult path that the US has begun," she said.

Meloni also spoke of a "very positive climate" at the Evian summit between US President Donald Trump and the other leaders present.

Italy's embassy in Tehran will reopen on Friday after more than three months of closure due to the war in Iran, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

"Our embassy in Tehran will re-open its doors on Friday," Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Italy's parliament.

After the US and Israel began the war with air strikes on Iran, Italy in early March decided to temporarily close its embassy and move its staff to neighbouring Azerbaijan for security reasons.

"Our ambassador will return to the Iranian capital with all our diplomats and foreign ministry officials," Tajani said.

"In a complex region like the Middle East, caution is essential. But, for the first time, after weeks of war and faltering negotiations, a tangible glimmer of peace is emerging," he said.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Wednesday that his country's negotiations with Israel in Washington were independent of the US-Iran deal.

"The assurances we have received, and what we insist on, is that Lebanon's path in the negotiations is independent, though we are certainly for a ceasefire and for any country that helps us, including Iran," Aoun said, according to a statement from his office.

But he added that "interference in Lebanese affairs is not permitted".  

"The Lebanese state is sovereign in its decision-making, and for the first time, it is the one conducting the negotiations, and nobody is negotiating for us."

Lebanon and Israel have been holding direct talks in Washington since April, seeking to end the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah and separate their conflict from the wider regional war.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had spoken to Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa about combatting Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Asked at the G7 summit in France if Sharaa was willing to take on the Shia group, Trump said he would talk about that later.

Trump’s remarks came after he criticised Israel for killing civilians in Lebanon and not just Hezbollah members.

"I consider that [Lebanon] the minor war, Iran’s a big one, but we have that little pinprick out there that constantly rears its head, and that's Hezbollah," Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the summit.

Earlier this year, the US had encouraged Syria to consider sending forces into eastern Lebanon to help disarm Hezbollah, but Damascus was reluctant to embark on such a mission for fear of being sucked into the war in the Middle East and inflaming sectarian tensions in Syria and Lebanon.

On Saturday, Sharaa denied the rumours circulating about Syria entering Lebanon.