Iran-US war latest: Trump says he expects to sign peace deal in ‘two or three days’ after warning Netanyahu

The latest threat of a new Middle East conflagration seems to have been averted in the final minutes of the eleventh hour.

After launching strikes on northern Israel that broke a six-week-long ceasefire, Iran announced that it was halting what it had said would be a week-long operation. Within the hour, Israel had announced that it would be halting its retaliatory strikes on Iran, at Donald Trump’s request.

It would be premature in the extreme, however, to believe that the danger has passed. Iran’s strikes on northern Israel, and Israel’s response, which included targeting Tehran, represented not just a resumption of the conflict that began with the US-Israel attack on Iran some 100 days ago, but a risk that the war would spread beyond those countries, including the Gulf states, already affected.

With the Iran-backed Houthis of Yemen renewing their threat to target ships linked to Israel traversing the Red Sea and Iran continuing to block the Strait of Hormuz, the spectre was raised of all north-south traffic in the whole region being brought to a halt. All too predictably, oil prices rose. Of the many perilous points in the conflict over the past five months, this was the most perilous to date.

We’re just hearing news that the Israeli military has issued an evacuation order for the Lebanese city of Tyre.

The evacuation order will include the city’s Christian quarter, the military said.

Previous evacuation orders had excluded the Christian quarter, but the military said Hezbollah militants were operating there, without providing evidence. It had warned residents that the area could be subject to evacuation orders if Hezbollah remained present.

The ancient city is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It is the fifth largest in Lebanon, and in peace time has had a population of around 200,000.

Iran’s World Cup team arrived in Mexico this weekend wearing lapel pins that paid tribute to the victims of a deadly missile strike on an elementary school at the start of the war with the US and Israel.

The gold-colored pins, worn by players on their jackets upon arrival in Tijuana, Mexico, bore the number “168.”

The number refers to the victims, predominantly children, who were killed in a February 28 strike on a school in Minab, southern Iran, an attack widely attributed to the US.

China’s exports picked up pace in May, rising 19.4 per cent from a year earlier, its customs agency said today, as technology-related shipments remained robust despite impacts from the Iran war.

The stronger-than-expected performance was an improvement from April’s 14.1 per cent year-on-year increase.

Imports in May jumped 27.4 per cent, also at a faster pace compared with April’s 25.3 per cent year-on-year expansion.

Exports to the US in May surged more than 35 per cent from the year before, after an 11 per cent increase in April.

Donald Trump said Israel had already launched retaliatory strikes against Iran before his call for restraint.

The US president insisted if he tells the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do something “he does it”, after he appeared to ignore Trump’s demand to hold back from responding militarily.

In a phone interview with the BBC, Trump said he stressed the need “to use a lot of common sense” when he spoke to the Israeli leader, amid ongoing negotiations aimed at securing an end to hostilities.

President Donald Trump said two crew members from a US Apache helicopter that crashed near the Strait of Hormuz were “fine”.

News of the crash emerged with the Middle East still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day in the biggest blow yet to the straining ceasefire in the Iran war. The cause of the helicopter incident remained unclear.

Trump told reporters: “The pilots are fine. Yeah. Nobody injured. We are going to issue a report tomorrow. But the pilots are fine.”

Donald Trump has said that Israel and Iran have agreed to leave each other alone for another week after he had a “very good conversation” with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

“He [Netanyahu] was hit, and he hit back, and I can’t blame him for that,” Trump told reporters as he departed from New York.

“But he was hit, he hit back, and now they’ve called it quits. So they’re going to just leave each other alone for another week or something,” Trump added.

Iran and Israel have agreed to halt their attacks after the two sides exchanged fire for the first time since the April truce, threatening to plunge the Middle East back into full-scale war.

The UK, along with 19 other Asian and European countries, has issued a joint statement criticising Israel’s new registration laws for aid groups working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“The aid entering Gaza has remained largely insufficient, both in quantity and in quality, while nearly the entire population depends on life-saving services,” the statement read.

Israel’s top court last week upheld the restrictions, which have banned 37 aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders, for refusing to provide lists of their Palestinian and international employees to the Israeli government.

“The registration law will affect and severely limit the INGO’s capacity to respond inside the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,” the countries said.

“We again strongly urge Israel to not implement the registration law in its current form.”