HEADLINES IN BRIEF

● The US and Iran sign 14-point peace deal aiming to end the war, with reopening of the Strait of Hormuz first on the agenda. READ MORE BELOW.

● One person has been killed and another injured by an Israeli drone strike on a car in south Lebanon, state media reported on Thursday. The alleged attack comes just hours after the United States and Iran signed an agreement to end the Middle East war. Israel's military meanwhile announced the death of one of its soldiers on Wednesday night, due to an explosion that left seven others injured.

● President Trump has hit out on social media against critics of the US-Iran deal brokered by Pakistan. On his social media site Truth Social, he wrote: “These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are “tumbling” down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

● Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has said Lebanon is at a “pivotal” moment ahead of Israeli-Lebanese negotiations that are expected to commence next week.

● Sources close to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said that Israel will not back down from keeping troops in southern Lebanon, amid reports of stubborn talks with the US. This would contravene Iran’s stipulation that a peace deal with the US requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. READ MORE BELOW.

● Israeli settlers vandalised and set fire to two mosques in the West Bank on Wednesday. AfP reporters were told that “settlers set fire to the ablution room, caused damage to the village's main mosque, and scrawled hostile slogans on the outer walls”. One slogan was “Hi, from the Hilltop Youth.” Israel's military confirmed the arson and graffiti on the mosques, but failed to identify the perpetrators. The violence comes amid rising attacks against Palestinians from Israeli settlers.

● Oil prices tumble as the US-Iran deal is signed, with benchmark Brent crude oil falling to as low as US$77.10 on Thursday morning. 

● Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has announced the severing of contact with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, after reported comments made during a trip to Mexico. READ MORE BELOW.

First stages of US-Iran peace deal go into effect, 60 days to complete 

The presidents of the US and Iran have signed a 14-point peace deal, or Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to initiate the ending of the war between the two countries. Pakistan's prime minister Shehbaz Sharif took to social media to release images of the MoU being signed, and officially endorsed the agreement.

US president Donald Trump formally signed the deal while attending the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains in France. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed the president Masoud Pezeshkian had signed electronically, and that the agreement had gone into effect late on Wednesday night. He also noted that there would not be a signing ceremony on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland, as originally expected.

Both countries are promoting the deal as a win: headlines in Tehran are celebrating “A Glorious Defeat!” as the Trump administration describes a “major, major win.”

The Strait of Hormuz is first on the agenda for both countries, with Iran mandated to reopen the waters immediately without tolling any ships for 60 days, and the US required to lift its blockade. 

The deal's signing, along with three Saudi-flagged supertankers detected sailing through Hormuz this morning, encouraged oil prices to tumble accordingly, with international benchmark Brent crude falling to US$77.1 on Thursday morning. 

However the actual flow of ships will take weeks to pick back up to pre-war levels. Before the Strait's closure, Lloyd's List Intelligence data showed that daily Strait of Hormuz cargo-vessel transits reached roughly 100 vessels in both directions, in journeys that transported around a fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies. Yet tracking data from MarineTraffic on Tuesday revealed there to be more than 250 tankers and more than 330 cargo ships inside the Gulf. The significant backlog will continue to disrupt traffic for the next few weeks. 

Continued safety and security concerns including the clearing of Iranian-planted mines will further prevent ships from sailing through the Strait, until risks have been identified and eliminated. 

Another key point in the deal is Iran’s pledge "that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons," and that it would shed its stockpile of enriched uranium. Iran's growing nuclear capacities were the trigger-point for the US-Israeli strikes on Tehran last June, and continue to be a main focus for the two allies. 

However it's important to remember that while a significant step towards peace, the MoU serves as a precursor to an official ceasefire to be signed in 60 days time. If either side fails to deliver on its promises, lasting peace could be in jeopardy. Donald Trump has been keen to underscore this, saying on Wednesday to reporters "we're gonna bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement."

Israel "stubborn" on changing offensive on Lebanon, sources report

A senior Israeli official close to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Reuters reporters that Israel was "conducting stubborn negotiations" with Washington in relation to continuing its deployment of troops in southern Lebanon.

They revealed that Israel would not back down on its positions, ​including keeping troops deployed in the area south ​of Lebanon's ⁠Litani River.

Israel has enjoyed seemingly unwavering support from the US throughout its military campaigns across the Middle East, yet recent weeks have shown a straining in the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, as the latter continued bomb and drone strikes against southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire being in place.

In an expletive-laden phone call last month, Trump criticised Netanyahu's continued attacks on Lebanon's capital Beirut; more recently at the G7 summit, Trump said to reporters that Netanyahu didn't need to knock down an apartment block every time he was looking for someone from Hezbollah.

Despite a renewed ceasefire being agreed between Lebanon and Israel on June 3, Israel has continued to launch strikes in the country's south, with drone strikes injuring several people on Wednesday, Lebanon's National News Agency reported. Both Israel and Hezbollah have carried out attacks against each other since the US-Iran agreement was announced on Sunday night.

Israel's FM severs contact with top EU diplomatic over apartheid comparisons

Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar has announced the severing of contact with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, following reports of comments she made in closed-door discussions in Mexico that compared Israel to the apartheid regime in South Africa. 

In a post on social media, Saar accused Kallas of acting "obsessively and with blatant unfairness toward the State of Israel."

Saar went on to write: "As the foreign minister of the State of Israel, I have no choice but to sever all contact with Ms Kallas until she retracts the blood libel she directed at the world’s only Jewish state, which is also the only democracy in the Middle East."

The EU diplomat has often come out in support of Israel, announcing in March 2025 that the EU stood "in solidarity with Israel and its people." However, the relationship between the two entities has become increasingly strained over Israel’s conflict in Gaza, the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, and the wider Middle East. 

Kallas has since responded to Saar's statement, pushing for continued dialogue between the EU and Israel whilst circumventing the alleged "apartheid" remarks.