HEADLINES IN BRIEF

• . READ MORE BELOW

• Peace talks are set to start in Pakistan on Saturday. READ MORE BELOW

• Iran marks a 40-day mourning ceremony for the slain supreme leader. READ MORE BELOW

• France says partners are finalizing plans to escort ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says full reopening of Strait of Hormuz is 'critical'.

• Britain's foreign minister said Lebanon must be included in a Middle East ceasefire.

IN DETAIL

Israeli strikes on Lebanon threaten the ceasefire

Hours after the ceasefire was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, resulting in the deadliest day in the country since the war began on February 28.

At least 182 people were killed in Lebanon on Wednesday as a part of Israel's intensified attacks on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, which joined the war in support of Tehran.

First responders searched overnight for missing people still under the rubble after the strikes, which hit commercial and residential areas of Beirut.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has insisted that an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump said it was not.

A New York-based think tank warned the deal "hovers on the verge of collapse."

"Even if Lebanon was formally outside the deal, the scale of Israel's strikes was likely to be viewed as escalatory, nonetheless," the Soufan Center wrote in an analysis.

"Israel's strikes can be understood both as an effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its proxies and as a response to being allegedly sidelined in the original ceasefire discussions."

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported Thursday that an Israeli strike overnight had killed at least seven people in southern Lebanon.

Iran and the US, which both declared victory in the wake of the ceasefire announcement, appeared to try to pressure each other.

Semi-official news agencies in Iran suggested forces have mined the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for the world's oil whose closure has proved Tehran's greatest strategic advantage in the conflict.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, warned that US forces remain in the area and would hit Iran even harder than before if it did not fulfill the agreement.

Iran says opening Strait of Hormuz depends on end to US 'aggression'

Only a trickle of ships have passed through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began after a few were attacked and Iran threatened to hit any that it deemed connected to the US or Israel.

Ships appeared to continue to avoid the strait Wednesday, despite the ceasefire.

Iran's deputy foreign minister said his country will allow ships to pass through in accordance with "international norms and international law" once the United States ends its "aggression" in the Middle East and Israel stops attacking Lebanon.

Saeed Khatibzadeh told the BBC on Thursday that Iran had closed the strait after US ally Israel committed an "intentional grave violation of the ceasefire."

He said "you cannot have a cake and eat it at the same time. That was the message that Iran sent quite clearly, crystal-clearly, to Washington and to the Oval Office last night."

Khatibzadeh added: "Definitely we are going to provide security for safe passage and it is going to happen after the United States actually withdraws this aggression. Does it mean that Iran is going to control the Strait of Hormuz in terms of letting ship by ship to go through that?

"I think that we have shown to everybody that energy security is pivotal for Iran, is pivotal for this body of water in the Persian Gulf, and we are going to be abided by the international norms and international law."

The strait's de facto closure has caused oil prices to skyrocket, raising, in turn, the cost of petrol, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East.

Oil prices fell on news of the ceasefire Wednesday, but began to climb as uncertainty over the deal grew.

The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was around $98 Thursday, up about 35% since the war began.

Peace talks expected in Pakistan but disagreements remain

The White House said that Vice President JD Vance would lead the US delegation for talks in Islamabad aimed at ending the war, which are set to start Saturday.

There appear to be many points of disagreement to address, including whether Iran will be allowed to formalize a system of charging ships to use the strait that it has instituted.

That would upend decades of precedent treating it as an international waterway that was free to transit.

The fate of Iran's missile and nuclear programs, the elimination of which were major objectives for the US and Israel in going to war, also remained unclear.

The US insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to build them, should it choose to pursue the bomb.

Iran, on the other hand, insists its program is peaceful with the chief of Iran's nuclear agency, Mohammad Eslami, telling journalists on Thursday that protecting Tehran's right to enrich uranium is "necessary" for any ceasefire talks with the United States.

"It is a part of the necessary (things) that nobody speaks about," Eslami said, referring to the US refusal to acknowledge enrichment as one part of Iran's 10-point plan for a permanent ceasefire.

Trump said on Wednesday that the US would work with Iran to remove the buried uranium, though Iran did not confirm that.

In one version of the deal that Iran published, it said it would be allowed to continue enrichment.

Iran marks 40-day mourning ceremony for slain supreme leader

Mourners across Iran began mourning ceremonies Thursday marking the 40th day after the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the Iran war.

In Iran's capital, Tehran, mourners wearing black began their rally from Jomhouri Eslami Square to the neighborhood of the office of Khamenei, 86.

Iranian state television aired similar commemorations in other cities. It said the ceremonies will continue into the night.

Khamenei's body has yet to be buried since his death on February 28.

His son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, now serves as Iran's supreme leader.