标签： Asia

Less than 24 hours after a bilateral ceasefire between Iran and the United States was supposed to take effect, the fragile truce hangs by a thread, as mutual accusations of violations and deadly Israeli attacks on Lebanese territory have plunged the Middle East into renewed uncertainty.

The core point of contention centers on whether the ceasefire applies to military operations in Lebanon, a nation that declared a national day of mourning on Thursday following a wave of Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday that killed no fewer than 200 Lebanese civilians. Washington and its closest regional ally Israel have insisted the two-week truce was never meant to curb Israeli military action against militant groups operating from Lebanese soil.

In a late Wednesday post on Truth Social, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that American military assets, including warships, combat aircraft, additional ammunition and ground troops, would remain deployed in the region surrounding Iran until what he called “the real agreement reached is fully complied with”. Trump added that the U.S. would retain all capabilities necessary to counter what he labeled a degraded adversary.

Iran has pushed back firmly against this framing. Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote in a post on X that the terms of the Iran-U.S. ceasefire are “clear and explicit”, arguing that Washington cannot simultaneously claim to uphold a truce while allowing Israel to continue its offensive in Lebanon. “The US must choose — ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both. The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the US court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments,” Araghchi said.

The dispute comes as Iran implemented a key truce-related concession earlier this week, agreeing to temporarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the critical global oil chokepoint that carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s daily crude supplies. In line with this agreement, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced Thursday that it had mapped two alternative transit routes for vessels passing through the strait, advising ships to use these alternate paths to avoid potential sea mine hazards and guarantee maritime safety.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who will lead the American negotiating team in the first round of direct talks with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan this Saturday, clarified Wednesday that Washington never made any commitment to force Israel to halt its strikes on Lebanon. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office echoed this position in an official statement, confirming that Israel supports the two-week suspension of strikes targeting Iran, on the condition that Tehran fully opens the Strait of Hormuz and ends all attacks against the U.S., Israel and regional allies.

The statement added that Israel backs American efforts to eliminate what it describes as Iran’s nuclear, missile and terrorist threats to the region and the wider world, and reaffirmed that the two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran explicitly excludes military operations in Lebanon.

This framing directly contradicts the initial announcement of the truce made by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who brokered the deal. When Sharif confirmed the ceasefire Wednesday, he stated that Iran, the U.S. and all their respective allies had agreed to an immediate end to hostilities across all territories, “including Lebanon and elsewhere”.

Israel’s widespread bombardment of Lebanon has drawn sharp condemnation from across the global community. France, Italy, Spain, Turkiye, Qatar and the United Kingdom have all issued statements condemning the offensive and called for Lebanon to be included in the Iran-U.S. ceasefire. Both the United Nations and Pakistan have also publicly denounced the attacks, with the Pakistani government noting that the strikes undermine international efforts to build peace and stability across the region.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, warned in an official statement that the ongoing military activity in Lebanon poses a severe threat to the fragile ceasefire and broader efforts to reach a lasting, comprehensive peace in the Middle East. “The Secretary-General reiterates his call to all parties to immediately cease hostilities,” Dujarric said, adding that international law, including international humanitarian law, must be respected at all times. “Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, and attacks directed against them are unacceptable. There is no military solution to the conflict,” he added. Guterres also renewed his call for all parties to engage through diplomatic channels and recommit to full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the 2006 resolution that ended the last major Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

Israeli military officials continued to expand their operations Thursday, announcing a series of new strikes and targeted killings across Lebanon and Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had eliminated Palestinian journalist Muhammad Samir Muhammad Washah in Gaza, claiming he operated as a Hamas terrorist while working on assignment for Al Jazeera. In Beirut, the IDF said it had killed Ali Yusuf Harshi, personal secretary to Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem, accusing Harshi of playing a central role in managing Qassem’s office. The IDF added that it had also struck two key weapons crossings used by Hezbollah along the Litani River, as well as 10 weapons storage facilities, rocket launchers and command centers across southern Lebanon.

Even within Israel, the government’s decision to exclude Lebanon from the ceasefire has faced growing public pushback. Organizers have confirmed that at least 11 anti-war protests are scheduled to take place across the country this weekend, opposing both the continuation of hostilities in Lebanon and what organizers describe as “attempts by the Israeli government to undermine the ceasefire with Iran”. Omri Evron, co-director of the Israeli anti-war coalition Peace Partnership, said the ceasefire itself serves as clear confirmation of the movement’s long-held position that there is no military solution to the region’s ongoing conflicts.

On a Wednesday in Gaza City, a 40-year-old Palestinian journalist became the latest media worker killed by Israeli forces in a controversial double-tap drone strike that has reignited global outrage over the targeting of reporters in the besieged enclave. Mohammed Samir Wishah, a veteran correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher, was en route with a colleague to cover a humanitarian story when the first strike hit his personal vehicle, igniting it in flames. According to eyewitnesses and first responders who spoke to witnesses on the ground, the deadly incident followed a disturbing pattern common to Israeli strikes in Gaza: a second attack launched minutes after the first, when emergency crews and local residents had gathered to evacuate casualties.

“The vehicle was hit the first time and caught fire. When civil defence teams and ambulances arrived, clearly marked and with medical personnel present, the site was targeted again,” a paramedic who arrived at the scene shortly after the attack stated in a widely circulated social media video. He added that the bodies of those killed were left charred by the repeated blasts, and roughly 10 to 20 bystanders and first responders were injured in the second strike.

A native of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, Wishah had built a reputation over more than a decade of reporting for his focus on underreported humanitarian stories in the territory. Colleagues confirmed he was carrying standard press equipment including his microphone when the strike hit, and had worked for Al Jazeera Mubasher since 2014. Due to the Israeli-imposed fragmentation of Gaza’s geographic areas during the ongoing conflict, Wishah had worked alone to cover all events in the central Gaza Strip, making him a well-known and trusted voice for local audiences.

Months before his killing, colleagues say Wishah was the target of a coordinated Israeli incitement campaign amid his ongoing coverage of the conflict in Gaza. In February 2024, Israeli army Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee published images on the social platform X claiming to prove Wishah’s affiliation with Hamas, labeling him a member of the armed group. A further accusation came in June 2025 from Hadeel Oueis, editor-in-chief of Jusoor News – an outlet Palestinian journalists widely allege has ties to Israeli intelligence – who claimed Wishah was secretly a member of the Qassam Brigades. Israeli writer Edy Cohen amplified the post with a public “appeal and warning.”

Colleagues have refuted all these claims, explaining that the images showing Wishah in military-style clothing were taken during production of a journalistic documentary. Wishah himself publicly challenged any party to produce evidence of armed affiliation, and Israel never released concrete proof to back up its allegations. “He was subjected to an incitement campaign launched by some social media pages affiliated with the Israeli occupation,” said Talal Mahmoud, a fellow Al Jazeera Mubasher reporter. “But he continued his work regardless; he did not hesitate for a moment to continue delivering his message.”

Shortly after Wishah’s death was confirmed, Adraee released a statement endorsing the strike, repeating the unproven claim that “Wishah was not a journalist, but a Hamas terrorist in every sense of the word.”

The killing of Wishah marks a grim milestone for press freedom in Gaza: he is the seventh Palestinian journalist killed by Israeli forces since a ceasefire agreement took effect in October, and brings the total number of journalists killed in Gaza since the start of the current conflict in October 2023 to at least 262, according to press freedom advocacy groups.

The death has sparked widespread international condemnation, with leading journalists’ organizations denouncing the attack and calling for an independent international investigation into the strike and efforts to hold perpetrators accountable. Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said Wishah’s killing fits a clear pattern of deliberate targeting of journalists by Israeli forces. “That makes Israel the biggest killer of journalists since CPJ started documenting those deaths in 1992. It has killed more journalists than any other government, any other military force, in the world,” Ginsberg told Al Jazeera. She added that the repeated killings of reporters form part of a deliberate strategy to control global information about what is unfolding in Gaza, noting “Journalists are civilians, and they should never be targeted in a war.”

Gaza-based Palestinian journalist Momen Faiz, who has himself been wounded in previous Israeli strikes, said Wishah was specifically targeted for his unflinching, exceptional on-the-ground reporting from Gaza throughout the conflict. “Mohammed was particularly excellent in live reporting, and he gave a space for humanitarian stories. He used to work under pressure for long days with limited sleeping time,” Faiz told Middle East Eye. “After conducting interviews, he often followed up with the interviewees and tried to help them.”

Faiz, who lost both legs in an Israeli strike while reporting in Rafah in 2008 and was wounded again in 2018, said all journalists in Gaza operate under the constant threat of being targeted. “After every journalist killed in Gaza, the news does not pass as mere news, but as a personal warning,” he said. “They continue to kill people they know very well are only journalists with clear press signs, vests and microphones or cameras. Israel wants to kill the witnesses to deliver a one-sided story to the world.”

In the wake of Wishah’s killing, Gaza-based journalists have taken to social media to highlight the constant danger they face, while reaffirming their commitment to continuing their reporting despite the risk. “After every journalist killed in Gaza, the news does not pass as mere news, but as a personal warning, as if death leaves its mark on our doors one by one, whispering inside each of us: you are not far away,” Gaza-based journalist Tariq Dahlan wrote in a Facebook post. “We bid farewell to our colleagues, yet we don’t have the luxury of a complete breakdown; we are compelled to carry on, not out of absolute courage, but out of loyalty to what they began, and because if their voice falls silent, everything else falls with it.”

Wishah’s killing comes amid ongoing Israeli attacks across Gaza that have pushed the territory’s population deeper into humanitarian catastrophe. Since the ceasefire agreement in October, Israeli military operations have killed at least 723 Palestinians and wounded roughly 2,000 more across the enclave. Since the start of the conflict in October 2023, Israeli forces have killed more than 72,300 Palestinians and wounded over 170,000, according to local health authorities.

An Iran-aligned cyber hacking collective known as the Handala Hack Team has announced it successfully breached the personal mobile device of Herzi Halevi, the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, claiming to have exfiltrated upwards of 19,000 confidential files in the operation. In an official statement published to the group’s website on Thursday, the hackers revealed their infiltration of Halevi’s device was the result of a multi-year surveillance and cyber operation that granted them unfettered access to what they describe as thousands of sensitive images and video recordings from closed-door high-level security meetings.

In the bold statement, the group claimed that Israel’s most closely guarded national security assets — from top-secret military facilities and crisis command centers to operational strategic maps — have been fully exposed to their team for an extended period. The breach is being described as one of the most impactful cyber incidents targeting a senior leader in Israel’s national security establishment to date, with portions of the stolen data already circulated and reviewed by Middle East Eye. The released materials include visual evidence of previously unreported meetings between Halevi and Arab regional officials.

One undated photograph places Halevi alongside Michael Kurilla, the former head of U.S. Central Command (Centcom), at a meeting held in Qatar, where a large official portrait of Qatar’s ruling Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is clearly visible in the background. A second undated image shows Halevi visiting the iconic Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, while a released video recording captures a meeting between Halevi and Jordan’s Chief of the General Staff, Yousef Huneiti, on Jordanian soil. In the video, Halevi presents Huneiti with a historic dagger that originally belonged to a Jordanian soldier killed during the 1967 Six-Day War, a symbolic gesture that had not been reported publicly prior to the breach.

Alongside the diplomatic and security-related materials, the hacking group also released personal content pulled from Halevi’s device, including private family photos, national identification cards for Halevi and his wife, and what the group frames as embarrassing personal moments. One short video shows Halevi hiding under a piano in a private living room as a woman enters the space.

The Handala Hack Team says it is withholding a large volume of additional stolen data that has not yet been made public, including further visual proof of unreported secret meetings, detailed Israeli military strategic maps, and personal identifying information for senior Israeli military commanders. The group warned in its statement that all of this unreleased material, which includes clear, unobscured imagery of senior Israeli military personnel and combat pilots, will be published incrementally at a future time of its choosing.

This cyber breach is not an isolated incident for the Handala Hack Team, which has built a track record of targeting high-profile Israeli political and security figures. Previous claimed attacks include a breach targeting former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and a senior aide to long-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Last year, the group claimed responsibility for hacking a personal device used by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, releasing hundreds of his private chat messages and a 141-page contact list that included contact details for multiple international heads of state and world leaders. Bennett acknowledged the breach of his Telegram account at the time, but noted that the released content included a mix of authentic and forged materials.

Herzi Halevi stepped down from his post as IDF Chief of Staff in March 2025, after leading Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip through the first 17 months of the ongoing conflict. He assumed the role of army chief in January 2023, while Kurilla held his position as Centcom commander from April 2022 through August 2025, placing the Qatar meeting between the two leaders within the timeframe of January 2023 to August 2025.