blockade of the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, which has caused the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies, or calmed the parallel war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\nFighting continues in Lebanon<\/p>\n
The Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, and his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, will hold talks in Washington on Tuesday, Israeli and Lebanese officials said, amid the conflicting accounts on what those talks would cover.<\/p>\n
![\"Lebanese](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQEPT6_AFP__20260409__A78U2CQ__v1__HighRes__LebanonIsraelIranUsWar_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nLebanese first responders use a digger to search under the rubble at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building the day before in Beirut’s Corniche al-Mazraa neighbourhood on April 9, 2026.
\nPhoto: IBRAHIM AMRO \/ AFP\n<\/p>\n
Lebanon’s presidency said the two had held a phone call on Friday and agreed to discuss announcing a ceasefire and setting a start date for bilateral talks under US mediation.<\/p>\n
But Israel’s embassy in Washington said the talks would constitute the start of “formal peace negotiations” and that Israel had refused to discuss a ceasefire with Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
Israeli attacks continued across southern Lebanon on Friday. One strike on a government building in the city of Nabatieh killed 13 members of Lebanon’s state security forces, President Joseph Aoun said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah said in a statement on its Telegram channel that it fired rocket salvos at northern Israeli towns in response.<\/p>\n
Hours after the ceasefire was announced, Israel launched the biggest attack of the war, killing more than 350 people in surprise strikes on heavily populated areas, Lebanese authorities said.<\/p>\n
Tehran’s agenda at the talks also includes demands for major new concessions, including the end of sanctions that crippled its economy for years, and acknowledgement of its authority over the Strait of Hormuz, where it aims to collect transit fees and control access in what would amount to a huge shift in regional power.<\/p>\n
Iran’s ships were sailing through the strait unimpeded on Friday, while those of other countries remained hemmed inside.<\/p>\n
Disruption to energy supplies has fed inflation and slowed the global economy, with an impact expected to last for months even if negotiators succeed in reopening the strait.<\/p>\n
The hard line taken by Iran’s leaders ahead of the negotiations followed a defiant message from its new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, on Thursday.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4JRUO91_AFP__20260312__A2ZB8WR__v2__HighRes__TopshotIranUsIsraelWar_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nA man watches a televised statement by Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei on March 12, 2026.
\nPhoto: AFP\n<\/p>\n
Khamenei, yet to be seen in public since taking over from his father, who was killed on the war’s first day, said Iran would demand compensation for all wartime damage.<\/p>\n
“We will certainly not leave unpunished the criminal aggressors who attacked our country,” he said.<\/p>\n
Although Trump has declared victory and degraded Iran’s military capabilities, the war has not achieved many of the aims he set out at the start: to deprive Iran of the ability to strike its neighbours, dismantle its nuclear programme, and make it easier for its people to overthrow their government.<\/p>\n
Iran still possesses missiles and drones capable of hitting its neighbours and a stockpile of more than 400kg of uranium enriched near the level needed to make a bomb. Its clerical rulers, who faced a popular uprising just months ago, withstood the onslaught with no sign of organised opposition.<\/p>\n
– Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A policeman stands guard in front of a digital screen displaying news of US\u2013Iran peace talks along a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-374410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQBZK9_AFP__20260410__A7DU6G3__v2__HighRes__TopshotPakistanWarIranUsIsraelDiplomacy_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"US](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQK5E7_AFP__20260406__A6VW2MN__v1__HighRes__UsPresidentDonaldTrumpHoldsPresserAmidIranWar_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n