04-14 00:01 · 中东,局势,BBC,中东
BBC Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega joins paramedics on duty in Nabatieh - a city that was once vibrant, but is now abandoned.
BBC joins paramedics on duty in Lebanon after Israeli strikes
The BBC's Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega joins paramedics on duty in Nabatieh, Lebanon - a city that was once vibrant, but is now abandoned.
In Lebanon, one in five people have been forced to leave their homes since fighting renewed in March.
At one ruined ambulance station, a paramedic shows where a colleague was killed by an Israeli strike while he was talking on the phone to his wife.
Israel says some ambulances and health facilities in Lebanon are being used by Hezbollah - but paramedics say there is no evidence of this claim.
Elsewhere, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops had killed more than 20 Hezbollah fighters operating from a hospital compound in Bint Jbeil on Sunday, the site of fierce fighting during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanon's health ministry denied the claim, accusing Israel of targeting civilians and medical facilities.
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04-14 00:01 · 中东,局势,BBC,中东
The Lebanese government go into peace talks with limited influence over the group.
Lebanon enters talks with Israel but with no cards to play
With Lebanon, again, engulfed by war, I remember a meeting I had with President Joseph Aoun at the Baabda Palace, a modernist building at the top of a hill overlooking Beirut last August.
Aoun, a former army chief, took office after a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia and political party that is backed by Iran. At that point, Hezbollah had been weakened and was isolated at home and Aoun had vowed to disarm it. The seemingly intractable issue over Hezbollah's weapons has long divided Lebanon, but Aoun appeared to believe he could solve it. "I was born an optimist," he told me.
At the time we met, a fragile ceasefire was in place in Lebanon. This deal had ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah in November 2024, but Israel was carrying out near-daily attacks on what it described as people and targets linked to the group. In some parts of the country, the conflict had never stopped. Even from my home in east Beirut I could occasionally hear the buzz of Israeli drones circling overhead.
For Hezbollah's supporters, the group is their only protection against Israel, which they see as an enemy intent on capturing Lebanese land. Opponents accuse Hezbollah, which is a Shia Muslim group, of defending the interests of its Iranian patron, dragging the country into unwanted and unnecessary wars.
When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, was killed in a strike on the first day of the US-Israeli bombardment of Tehran in February, Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel. The group said this was in retaliation for his death and the constant Israeli bombing during the ceasefire; Israel responded with air strikes and another ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
President Aoun, hoping to stop the bloodshed, proposed to negotiate directly with Israel, a significant step for two countries that do not even recognise each other. Israel ignored the offer until last week, after the US agreed a ceasefire with Iran and Israel carried out widespread air strikes that killed more than 300 people in just one day in Lebanon.
A meeting between ambassadors from both countries, expected to focus on a ceasefire here, is scheduled to take place later on Tuesday in Washington. With very limited influence over Hezbollah, what can the Lebanese government do? And what are the chances of finding lasting peace?
Forged in conflict
Hezbollah, or Party of God in Arabic, was created in the 1980s during Israel's occupation of Lebanon in the Lebanese Civil War. From its beginning, the group has been financed, trained and armed by Iran, and the destruction of Israel remains one of its official goals.
In 1989, the Taif Agreement that ended Lebanon's conflict mandated the disarmament of all militias and introduced a power-sharing deal between sects in a country that is multi-cultural and multi-faith. However, Hezbollah, branding itself as a resistance movement fighting the Israeli occupation, managed to keep its weapons. Israel withdrew its troops in 2000 after an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, but territorial disputes remained. And the United Nations Resolution 1701, that ended the war with Israel in 2006 and demanded Hezbollah's disarmament, has never been fully implemented.
The group is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including the UK and the US. But, in Lebanon, Hezbollah is more than a militia. It is a political party represented in parliament and in the government, and a social movement that runs services including schools and hospitals in areas where the state has been absent. It is the country's most powerful group.
Since coming to power, President Aoun has defended a policy he calls the "state monopoly on arms". As part of the ceasefire deal in 2024, Hezbollah had agreed to remove its fighters and weapons from southern Lebanon which, for decades, had effectively been under the group's control. Hezbollah also holds sway over Beirut's southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, and the eastern Bekaa Valley, where part of its arsenal is located, but Naim Qassem, its secretary-general, has rejected discussing a full, nationwide disarmament.
Aoun, however, has warned that action to remove Hezbollah's weapons without its consent could lead to violence. "We can't let the country descend into another civil war," he said when we met in August. Amid continued Israeli attacks and Hezbollah's refusal to negotiate, I asked Aoun what his plan was. He said there was almost nothing else he could do.
A government without cards
Lebanon, a tiny country measuring just 4,000 square miles on the eastern Mediterranean, has a population of around 5.8 million and officially recognises 18 religious sects. Two thirds of its people are thought to be Muslim – Sunni and Shia populations are relatively equal in size – and a third is Christian. In December, a Gallup poll suggested that nearly four in five Lebanese were in favour of only the country's army bein
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04-13 00:01 · 中东,局势,BBC,中东
Twenty-one hours was not enough to end 47 years of hostility between Iran and the US, writes the BBC's Lyse Doucet.
After Iran talks falter, the big question is what happens next?
Twenty-one hours was not enough to end 47 years of hostility between Iran and the US.
The historic high-level talks in Islamabad, during a pause in weeks of grievous war, were always unlikely to end any other way.
Calling this marathon negotiating session a failure belies the scale of the challenge in narrowing wide gaps on complex issues ranging from age-old suspicion about Iran's nuclear programme to new challenges this war has thrown up - most of all Iran's control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, whose closure is causing economic shocks worldwide.
To do a deal, they also needed to overcome a deep chasm of distrust.
A day ago, it wasn't even certain the two sides would meet, and even more, sit down in the same room.
A longstanding political taboo was broken.
The urgent question now is: what happens next?
What happens to the contested two-week ceasefire which pulled the world back from US President Donald Trump's alarming threat to destroy a "whole civilisation" in Iran?
Would the US president be ready to send his negotiators back to the bargaining table?
We're hearing reports from sources here in Islamabad that some conversations have continued after US Vice-President JD Vance boarded his plane at sunrise, declaring the US delegation had made their "final and best offer".
Will the US now escalate or negotiate?
We still don't know enough about what happened behind tightly closed doors in a five-star hotel in leafy locked-down Islamabad during talks that went on long into the night.
There are still few details on the disputes and discussion between the two sides, assisted by Pakistani mediators, the calls to and from experts, advisers, and, according to Vance, "dozens" of calls to Trump himself.
The vice-president spoke of the "core goal" of the US during his brief dawn news conference.
"We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon," he said.
During the last round of talks in February, before military strikes were unleashed again, Iran had offered new concessions including the dilution of its 440kg stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% - dangerously close to weapons-grade.
But it still insists on its "right" to enrich and hasn't been willing to give up that stockpile, now said to be buried deep in the rubble after US and Israeli air strikes last year.
It's also refused repeated demands to open the Strait of Hormuz - to allow the free flow of vital traffic in oil, gas and other essential goods - in the absence of a new agreement.
Both the US and the Iranian delegations came to Islamabad emboldened by their belief that theirs was the winning side in this war.
And they engaged knowing that, if they failed, there was the option to keep fighting – whatever the spiralling pain for their own people and a world reeling from the cost of this conflagration.
There was also what Dr Sanam Vakil of Chatham House describes as a "limited psychological understanding of the adversary and what compromises are needed for a real deal".
Vance spoke of good news – "we've had a number of substantive negotiations" - and there was bad news: "We have not reached an agreement."
And he made it clear that was "bad news for Iran much more than the United States of America".
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei criticised the US's "excessive demands and unlawful requests" in a post on X.
And its parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Iran's negotiating team, wrote that "the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations".
Iran is indicating it's ready to keep talking. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar urged all sides to uphold the fragile ceasefire and said they would continue their efforts to encourage dialogue - sentiments being echoed in other concerned capitals.
If history provides any lessons, the last time Iran reached a nuclear deal with the US and other world powers in 2015, it took 18 months of breakthroughs and breakdowns.
Trump has made it clear he doesn't want to get bogged down in protracted negotiations. Vance previously warned that the US would not be receptive if Tehran tried to "play us".
Pakistani journalist Kamran Yousef - in a legion of journalists who pulled all-nighters to provide non-stop coverage with very few details - declared that this round was one of "no breakthrough but no breakdown either".
The world waits for a verdict.
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04-12 13:43 · 中东,局势,BBC,中东
BBC Middle East Correspondent Hugo Bachega hears from people affected by this week's attacks.
Still in shock, Beirut tries to heal after deadly Israeli attacks
Lebanon experienced one of the deadliest days in its recent history, as widespread Israeli air strikes brought horror and destruction to the country on Wednesday, just hours after a ceasefire was announced in Iran.
The attacks, that came in the middle of the day without warning, killed more than 300 people, a third of them women, children and the elderly, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Some of the attacks hit busy, densely populated neighbourhoods, places that had not been targeted before and where people felt they were safe.
Israel said it carried out more than 100 air strikes in just 10 minutes on what it described as targets linked to the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.
BBC Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega has spoken to residents in Beirut, a city that is still in shock.
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04-12 13:43 · 中东,局势,BBC,中东
Twenty-one hours was not enough to end 47 years of hostility between Iran and the US, writes the BBC's Lyse Doucet.
After Iran talks falter, the big question is 'what happens next?'
Twenty-one hours was not enough to end 47 years of hostility between Iran and the US.
The historic high-level talks in Islamabad, during a pause in weeks of grievous war, were always unlikely to end any other way.
Calling this marathon negotiating session a failure belies the scale of the challenge in narrowing wide gaps on complex issues ranging from age-old suspicion about Iran's nuclear programme to new challenges this war has thrown up - most of all Iran's control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, whose closure is causing economic shocks worldwide.
To do a deal, they also needed to overcome a deep chasm of distrust.
A day ago, it wasn't even certain the two sides would meet, and even more, sit down in the same room.
A longstanding political taboo was broken.
The urgent question now is: what happens next?
What happens to the contested two-week ceasefire which pulled the world back from US President Donald Trump's alarming threat to destroy a "whole civilisation" in Iran?
Would the US president be ready to send his negotiators back to the bargaining table?
We're hearing reports from sources here in Islamabad that some conversations have continued after US Vice-President JD Vance boarded his plane at sunrise, declaring the US delegation had made their "final and best offer".
Will the US now escalate or negotiate?
We still don't know enough about what happened behind tightly closed doors in a five-star hotel in leafy locked-down Islamabad during talks that went on long into the night.
There are still few details on the disputes and discussion between the two sides, assisted by Pakistani mediators, the calls to and from experts, advisers, and, according to Vance, "dozens" of calls to Trump himself.
The vice-president spoke of the "core goal" of the US during his brief dawn news conference.
"We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon," he said.
During the last round of talks in February, before military strikes were unleashed again, Iran had offered new concessions including the dilution of its 440kg stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% - dangerously close to weapons-grade.
But it still insists on its "right" to enrich and hasn't been willing to give up that stockpile, now said to be buried deep in the rubble after US and Israeli air strikes last year.
It's also refused repeated demands to open the Strait of Hormuz - to allow the free flow of vital traffic in oil, gas and other essential goods - in the absence of a new agreement.
Both the US and the Iranian delegations came to Islamabad emboldened by their belief that theirs was the winning side in this war.
And they engaged knowing that, if they failed, there was the option to keep fighting – whatever the spiralling pain for their own people and a world reeling from the cost of this conflagration.
There was also what Dr Sanam Vakil of Chatham House describes as a "limited psychological understanding of the adversary and what compromises are needed for a real deal".
Vance spoke of good news – "we've had a number of substantive negotiations" - and there was bad news: "We have not reached an agreement."
And he made it clear that was "bad news for Iran much more than the United States of America".
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei criticised the US's "excessive demands and unlawful requests" in a post on X.
And its parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Iran's negotiating team, wrote that "the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations".
Iran is indicating it's ready to keep talking. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar urged all sides to uphold the fragile ceasefire and said they would continue their efforts to encourage dialogue - sentiments being echoed in other concerned capitals.
If history provides any lessons, the last time Iran reached a nuclear deal with the US and other world powers in 2015, it took 18 months of breakthroughs and breakdowns.
Trump has made it clear he doesn't want to get bogged down in protracted negotiations. Vance previously warned that the US would not be receptive if Tehran tried to "play us".
Pakistani journalist Kamran Yousef - in a legion of journalists who pulled all-nighters to provide non-stop coverage with very few details - declared that this round was one of "no breakthrough but no breakdown either".
The world waits for a verdict, most of all from Trump.
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04-10 06:10 · 中东,局势,BBC,中东
The US president accused Iran of "doing a very poor job" with the waterway as Israel and Lebanon to begin peace talks.
Trump says Iran's handling of Strait of Hormuz is 'not the agreement we have'
US President Donald Trump has accused Iran of doing a "very poor job" in its handling of oil passing through the pivotal Strait of Hormuz, arguing it was "not the agreement we have".
The comments reflect the fragile nature of the ceasefire agreement, with reports showing conflicts on what was included in the accord.
It came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government was to begin direct talks with Lebanon, focusing on the disarmament of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, and establishing peaceful relations.
A US State Department official confirmed it would host a meeting next week in Washington "to discuss ongoing ceasefire negotiations with Israel and Lebanon".
Lebanese officials had called for a ceasefire before the talks begin, but Netanyahu said in a subsequent address to residents of northern Israel: "There is no ceasefire in Lebanon."
After Israeli strikes continued in Lebanon throughout Thursday - targeting what it described as Hezbollah rocket launch sites in the south - attacks appeared to at least temporarily taper off overnight in the region.
Trump said in an interview that Israel would be "scaling back" its strikes in the country to support peace talks.
"I spoke with Bibi and he's going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key," Trump told NBC News after a phone call with Netanyahu.
The strikes on Thursday led to new evacuation warnings for residents in the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on X that this included the Jnah area, which includes two major hospitals.
"At this time, no alternative medical facilities are available to receive approximately 450 patients from the two hospitals (including 40 patients in the ICU), rendering their evacuation operationally unfeasible," he said.
Among those being treated at the hospitals, Tedros added, were some of the 1,150 people that Lebanon's health ministry said were wounded in Wednesday's massive wave of Israeli strikes. At least 303 people were killed.
Tedros also said that the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Health, which "hosts five shelters accommodating more than 5,000 people", is in the evacuation area.
That ceasefire began with confusion over whether Lebanon, Israel's second front, was to be included. Iranian officials and mediators from Pakistan said it was, US and Israeli officials said clearly that it was not.
Amid the confusion, the wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon – the heaviest since the conflict began six weeks ago – prompted Iran to declare that Israel was breaking the terms of the ceasefire, to once again halt passage of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and to threaten retaliatory strikes.
Trump posted to Truth Social over ship traffic through the pivotal waterway, which typically sees 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) passing through.
"There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait," he wrote. "They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now."
Israel's military continues to occupy a large part of the south of Lebanon, where it has destroyed villages in recent days. Without a commitment to a temporary ceasefire at least, it is not clear how productive talks could proceed between the two sides.
It is also unclear how much sway the Lebanese government, with which the Israelis will be negotiating, will have over Hezbollah, which despite having representation in the Lebanese government is a separate entity backed by Iran.
The Lebanese government banned Hezbollah's military activities in early March, days after the start of war with Israel, but it has not stopped the group from carrying out military operations.
On Thursday, Lebanon's cabinet instructed government security forces to restrict weapons in Beirut exclusively to state institutions.
"The army and security forces are requested to immediately begin reinforcing the full imposition of state authority over Beirut Governorate," Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said at the end of a cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu's office said Israel "appreciates today's call by the Prime Minister of Lebanon to demilitarise Beirut".
It said negotiations between the two countries would focus on "disarming Hezbollah and establishing peace relations between Israel and Lebanon".
According to US outlet Axios, Netanyahu's statement came after he held calls with US President Donald Trump and White House envoy Steve Witkoff.
The publication quoted a senior Israeli official who said the direct negotiations will begin next week in Washington.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun earlier said that a ceasefire was "the only solution" to the situation in Lebanon.
The latest escalation in the decades-long conflict between Hezbollah and Israel erupted when the group fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for the killing of Ira
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04-10 00:01 · 中东,局势,BBC,中东
Lebanese officials had called for a ceasefire before talks begin.
Israel to hold direct talks with Lebanon but no ceasefire, Netanyahu says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his government to begin direct talks with Lebanon, he said in a statement on Thursday.
Netanyahu said the talks would focus on the disarmament of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese political and militant group, and establishing peaceful relations.
A US State Department official confirmed it would host a meeting next week "to discuss ongoing ceasefire negotiations with Israel and Lebanon".
Lebanese officials called for a ceasefire before the talks begin, but Netanyahu in a subsequent address to residents of northern Israel said: "There is no ceasefire in Lebanon."
The Israeli military continued to strike Lebanon on Thursday - targeting what it described as Hezbollah rocket launch sites in the south. It also issued a new evacuation warning for residents in the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on X that this included the Jnah area, which includes two major hospitals.
"At this time, no alternative medical facilities are available to receive approximately 450 patients from the two hospitals (including 40 patients in the ICU), rendering their evacuation operationally unfeasible," he said.
Among those being treated at the hospitals, Tedros added, were some of the 1,150 people that Lebanon's health ministry said were wounded in Wednesday's massive wave of Israeli strikes. At least 303 people were killed.
Tedros also said that the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Health, which "hosts five shelters accommodating more than 5,000 people", is in the evacuation area.
That ceasefire began with confusion over whether Lebanon, Israel's second front, was to be included. Iranian officials and mediators from Pakistan said it was, US and Israeli officials said clearly that it was not.
Amid the confusion, the wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon – the heaviest since the conflict began six weeks ago – prompted Iran to declare that Israel was breaking the terms of the ceasefire, to once again halt passage of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and to threaten retaliatory strikes.
Israel's military continues to occupy a large part of the south of Lebanon, where it has destroyed villages in recent days. Without a commitment to a temporary ceasefire at least, it is not clear how productive talks could proceed between the two sides.
It is also unclear how much sway the Lebanese government, with which the Israelis will be negotiating, will have over Hezbollah, which despite having representation in the Lebanese government is a separate entity backed by Iran.
The Lebanese government banned Hezbollah's military activities in early March, days after the start of war with Israel, but it has not stopped the group from carrying out military operations.
On Thursday, Lebanon's cabinet instructed government security forces to restrict weapons in Beirut exclusively to state institutions.
"The army and security forces are requested to immediately begin reinforcing the full imposition of state authority over Beirut Governorate," Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said at the end of a cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu's office said Israel "appreciates today's call by the Prime Minister of Lebanon to demilitarise Beirut".
It said negotiations between the two countries would focus on "disarming Hezbollah and establishing peace relations between Israel and Lebanon".
According to US outlet Axios, Netanyahu's statement came after he held calls with US President Donald Trump and White House envoy Steve Witkoff, and that senior US officials had asked Netanyahu to "calm down" Israeli strikes and open negotiations.
The publication quoted a senior Israeli official who said the direct negotiations will begin next week in Washington.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun earlier said that a ceasefire was "the only solution" to the situation in Lebanon.
The latest escalation in the decades-long conflict between Hezbollah and Israel erupted when the group fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening stages of the war, and in response to the near-daily Israeli attacks on Lebanon that have continued despite a ceasefire agreed in November 2024.
More than 1,800 people have been killed, including at least 130 children, so far as a result of the war, the Lebanese health ministry says, without distinguishing combatants from civilians.
Israel says it has killed around 1,100 Hezbollah fighters.
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced, or one in five of the population, most of them from Shia Muslim communities.
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04-10 00:01 · 中东,局势,BBC,中东
Both sides have reason to end the war but share no common ground.
Ceasefire or no ceasefire, the Middle East's reshuffling is not yet done
The best hope for the ceasefire talks in Pakistan is that both the United States and Iran have strong reasons to call a halt to the war. The biggest obstacle to their success is a total absence of trust, no discernible common ground and the fact that Israel, America's full partner in the war, has hugely escalated its onslaught on Lebanon.
US President Donald Trump is already speaking about the war in the past tense. He has declared victory and needs an exit. Not only does he have a state visit from King Charles in the diary for later this month, followed by a summit with China's President Xi Jinping in May, there are midterm elections in November. With America's summer holiday season looming, Trump also needs petrol prices to fall back to where they were before he went to war. Royal visits, summits and elections do not mix well with wars.
Iran's regime has its own reasons to end the war. It is as defiant as ever, still able to launch missiles and drones, with its social media warriors pouring out AI videos lampooning Donald Trump. But Iran has suffered massive damage. Cities have come to an economic standstill and the regime needs time to regroup and will try to use the talks in Pakistan to strengthen its position.
The Pakistani intermediaries who will be shuttling between the two delegations have a tough job on their hands. The declared positions of the two sides are as far apart as it is possible to be.
Trump has a 15-point plan that has not been published but leaked versions make it sound more like a surrender document than a basis for negotiation. Iran's 10-point plan contains a list of demands that America has consistently rejected in the past.
Creating a more durable ceasefire will require some kind of agreement to at least keep talking about the two sides' contradictory lists of intractable issues.
It would be hard enough to work through them in peacetime.
In wartime, without any kind of mutual trust, even a form of words that keeps the ceasefire going irrespective of there being no agreement on wider issues will look positive. No agreement at all points towards the road back to war.
The newest, and most urgent problem they face concerns reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow exit from the Gulf. Keeping it closed gives Iran a chokehold on the world economy.
Reopening the waterway that was used by hundreds of ships a day until the US and Israel attacked Iran has become the central issue in the negotiation. The millions of civilians in the Middle East who have been caught up in this conflict hope this negotiation will be the war's endgame.
No victory parade
The Americans did not expect to be spending early April sitting down to ceasefire talks when, alongside Israel on 28 February, they ignited the war with huge strikes that killed among many others Iran's supreme leader, his wife and other members of their family.
Trump was expecting a quick victory, an Iranian version of the US military's stunning kidnap of the Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife in January. Both are on trial in New York on narco-terrorism charges, and the US has installed his former deputy in the presidential palace.
Hopes – expectations – that killing Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, in the war's first wave of airstrikes would lead to the collapse of the regime were wildly misplaced. His son Mojtaba has not been seen since he was appointed as his successor. There is speculation that he was badly hurt in the attack that killed his parents, as well as reportedly his sister, his wife and one of his sons. With or without the active participation of the new supreme leader, Iran's regime has demonstrated depths of resilience that took Trump by surprise.
Now Donald Trump's representatives, led by his Vice-President JD Vance, must negotiate with adversaries that they claim, incorrectly, to have defeated. "A capital V military victory", as US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth put it.
The Hormuz factor
The war that the US and Israel ignited is already reshuffling Middle Eastern geopolitics. As the longer-term consequences of the war reveal themselves, that process will deepen. The US and Israel have done immense damage to Iran's armed forces as well as its military and civilian infrastructure. However, while the Iranian regime may be battered, it's also intact. Regime change is not happening. Iran can still launch missiles and drones. That means that despite loud claims, the US and Israel have not translated tactical victories into strategic advances.
Iran, on the other hand, has shown that the closing of the Strait of Hormuz gives it a strategic edge that Donald Trump either dismissed or did not understand when he listened to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's arguments for going to war with Iran.
It should not have been a surprise that Iran blocked the Strait when it was attacked. Iran has threatened to do so in the past, and disrupte
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04-09 08:19 · 地缘政治,中东局势,国际关系,停火协议,政治风险
Why ceasefire deal with US has unsettled Iran's hardliners
Why ceasefire deal with US has unsettled Iran's hardliners
Only days ago, Islamic Republic hardliners running the city of Tehran put up a gigantic banner at one of the busiest intersections in the Iranian capital.
"The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed," it declared.
This was meant to signal an edict from Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since being named leader last month.
But that banner may now have to be taken down after Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait as requested by Pakistan, which has been mediating between the US and Iran.
That is despite Iran repeatedly saying it would not agree to a temporary ceasefire and that it wanted a permanent end to the US and Israeli war on Iran.
The hardliners are not happy. They have been emboldened by Iran's ability to close the Strait and cause havoc to countries in the Gulf with missiles and drones - maintaining that Iran should have continued the war as it had the upper hand against the US and Israel.
Reports from Tehran said they set fire to US and Israeli flags after the announcement of the ceasefire agreement on Tuesday.
A group of men from the Basij volunteer militia, which is controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), marched to the foreign ministry in the middle of the night to oppose the decision.
A few hours later, the editor of the hardline newspaper Kayhan wrote that agreeing to the ceasefire was "a gift to the enemy", allowing it to restock and continue the war.
The decision to accept the request from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his army chief was made by the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) - Iran's country's highest decision-making body under the supreme leader, which is headed by moderate President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The SNSC declared that safe passage would be possible through the Strait of Hormuz for a period of two weeks in return for a ceasefire from the US and Israel, while Washington and Tehran engaged in talks.
Reports say China played a significant role in convincing Iran, its close ally, to agree to Pakistan's request.
Temporary relief?
Iran has suffered a great deal of destruction in the 40-day war.
More than 3,000 people have been killed, human rights activists say, and US President Donald Trump had threatened further deaths and destruction on an even greater scale.
Even among the hardliners, it was becoming clear that a way out had to be found before Iran's critical infrastructure was further destroyed.
Only hours before the announcement of the ceasefire, the hardline Chief Justice, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, told Iranian state TV that Iran was seeking an end to the war while still maintaining an upper hand.
He was broadly repeating what the country's former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a moderate, had written a few days earlier in an article in the US publication Foreign Affairs.
The SNSC has portrayed the ceasefire agreement as a victory for Iran, calling on regime supporters to remain united.
According to Iranian media, the Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, is to lead the Iranian delegation in talks with the US in Islamabad, directly negotiating with US Vice President JD Vance.
This is another departure from the hardline script. Direct negotiations with the US had always been banned by the former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on his home at the outset of the war.
This direct contact appears to have been sanctioned by the new leader, who is his son.
Despite the ceasefire, Iran and the US remain far from a lasting peace.
The war could resume if the talks break down. That is a prospect some Iranians who supported the war, seeing it as a way to remove what they consider a vile regime, may be hoping for.
For many others, the ceasefire offers much needed relief from the death and destruction around them.
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04-09 08:19 · 中东,中东
Iran Strait of Hormuz warning adds to shipping uncertainty
Iran Strait of Hormuz warning adds to shipping uncertainty
Ships in the Gulf have received a warning from Iran's navy that any vessels seeking to cross the Strait of Hormuz without permission "will be targeted and destroyed", the shipping brokerage firm SSY has confirmed to BBC Verify.
A two-week ceasefire was agreed on Tuesday evening on the condition that "safe passage" through the narrow waterway is guaranteed - but only a few vessels have since crossed.
The strait has become a focal point of the US-Israel war with Iran after Tehran effectively choked off one of the world's most important shipping lanes, carrying about a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas.
The disruption, over the past five weeks, has sent shock waves across the world economy, pushing up energy prices and exposing just how reliant international supply chains are on the strait, which is only about 33km (21 miles) wide at its narrowest point.
As well as energy, the Gulf is also vital for transporting chemicals needed to process products like microchips, pharmaceuticals and fertiliser.
While the price of oil has fallen on news of the ceasefire, shipping analysts are warning to expect only a trickle of crossings for now.
"Most shipping lines would want to get details and reassurances on what it actually takes to transit and those details are not available," Lars Jensen from Vespucci Maritime told the BBC.
By 14:00 BST on 8 April just three bulk carriers - NJ Earth, Daytona Beach and Hai Long 1 - had passed through the strait since the ceasefire was announced late on Tuesday night.
That's based on BBC Verify analysis of ship-tracking data from MarineTraffic.
That compares to 138 ships that passed through the strait each day, on average, before the conflict started on 28 February.
We do not know if the three vessels that crossed on Wednesday were the result of the ceasefire, or whether they had already planned to make the journey.
"It is still too soon to tell whether this reflects a broader ceasefire-driven reopening or a previously approved exception," says Ana Subasic from the shipping analyst company Kpler.
"Nothing has really changed yet," adds Jensen, arguing it will take time before crews are confident enough to cross safely.
That view is echoed by Richard Meade, editor-in-chief of Lloyd's List, who says it has been a "very dangerous" time for ship owners who still face a huge amount of uncertainty.
"We know Iran is essentially still in control of the strait, and the assumption is that ship owners will still need to seek permission from the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]… and how that's going to work is still not clear."
BBC Verify's analysis of the paths taken by the three ships shows them taking a northern route through the strait close to Iran's coastline and entering its territorial waters.
Prior to the conflict, vessels usually took a more southerly route through the middle of the waterway.
'Nearly 800 ships stuck'
If crossings do resume, Meade expects that stranded tankers that are fully loaded with cargo will be the first through.
"You've had nearly 800 ships stuck in there for several weeks. Most of them are now loaded with cargo, so the priority is going to be to get them out."
The duration of the ceasefire - set to last two weeks - also brings uncertainty for ships, says Niels Rasmussen, a shipping analyst from BIMCO.
"I doubt there will be a large influx of ships into the Gulf… because they do not want to risk being trapped after the two-week window closes."
Another uncertainty is the possibility of sea mines, says Thomas Kazakos, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping.
"We need to make sure that we have clear confirmation that the safety of navigation for the ships and the seafarers are being agreed," he told BBC Verify.
Toll payments
On top of these concerns, ships face the uncertainty of possibly having to make payments to Iran in order to secure safe passage - following reports that tolls may be a part of the ceasefire deal.
"The Iranian negotiation position seems to be that you need to pay a toll to go through the strait and shipping lines will also be hesitant in going down the path of paying that toll," says Jensen.
But paying a toll could present an added complexity for other countries and shipping companies as payment "might actually be in violation of some of the US sanctions on Iran which would have other repercussions on shipping lines," adds Jensen.
Sanctions work by criminalising payments to individuals, companies and organisations, explains James Turner, a shipping lawyer from Quadrant Chambers.
He told BBC Verify that a sanction violation occurs when payment is made to anyone on the list, so paying a toll to them would be a violation unless the US makes an exception.
Despite the lack of crossings so far, markets responded positively in the hours following the ceasefire.
Benchmark Brent crude fell by about 13% to $94.80 (£70.73) a barrel, while US-traded oil was mor
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