Iran’s ⁠top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf ⁠is ⁠on his ​way to Oman ⁠to discuss joint efforts ⁠to “consolidate” Iranian ​arrangements ‌for ‌managing shipping ‌in the strait of Hormuz, according to a statement ‌on his Telegram channel on Monday.

The ​Iranian delegation also includes foreign ⁠minister Abbas Araqchi, ​the statement ​said.

Tehran ⁠did not negotiate on its nuclear ⁠programme ⁠and did ​not accept any ⁠new commitments in Sunday’s talks with the ⁠US in ​Switzerland, ‌foreign ministry spokesperson ‌Esmaeil Baghaei told ‌the official IRNA news agency on Monday.

Iran’s interaction with the International ‌Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will continue in ​accordance with current procedures, subject to the approval ⁠of Iran’s parliament ​and the decisions ​of ​the Supreme National ​Security ‌Council, ​Baghaei added.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio will begin a trip to three Gulf countries on Tuesday amid negotiations with Iran to end the war in the Middle East, his spokesperson said.

Visiting the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, Rubio will discuss “the memorandum of understanding with Iran, efforts to secure full and free safe transit through the strait of Hormuz, and the importance of peace and stability in the region,” state department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

Direct damage to buildings in south Lebanon in the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah is estimated at around $1.38 billion, a UN agency and Lebanese research centre said on Monday.

“In total, 11,095 buildings were completely destroyed, impacting 17,891 housing units, while 2,242 buildings sustained partial damage... and 9,311 buildings incurred minor damage,” the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Lebanon’s government-linked National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) said.

The assessment compared satellite imagery from late April, nearly two months into the latest war, with those from October 2025.

Iranian ⁠president ⁠Masoud Pezeshkian ​will visit ⁠Pakistan on ⁠Tuesday, ​Pakistan’s ‌foreign ministry ‌has said.

He described the visit ‌as an “important opportunity” to ​discuss ongoing ⁠diplomatic engagements ​following the ​Iran-US ​peace ​deal.

The US Treasury said it was temporarily lifting sanctions on Iran to allow the Islamic Republic to produce, sell and deliver crude oil and related products until 21 August.

“All transactions” that were previously prohibited involving the production, sale, and transport of Iranian-origin crude oil “are authorized through 12:01 am eastern daylight time, 21 August, 2026,” according to a license published by the Treasury Department, which administers US economic sanctions.

US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent cited Tehran’s commitment in ongoing negotiations to “free and open transit” in the strait of Hormuz and permission for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to enter their country as a reason for pausing the sanctions.

The Israeli military lifted safety restrictions in eight communities near the Lebanese border beginning at 6am (0300 GMT) on Monday.

A senior Lebanese security official told the Reuters news agency that adherence to the ceasefire had been “almost total” since Saturday ⁠evening, but said an Israeli ⁠tank fired shells towards a village near ​the coastal city of Tyre and Israeli forces fired sound grenades in two other locations earlier today.

Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian will make a one-day visit to Pakistan on Tuesday, according to reports.

Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is among those who have heavily criticised the US-Iran deal, has been speaking at his Otzma Yehudit party’s meeting in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

The Times of Israel has quoted him as having said the following:

If Lebanon allows its territory to be turned into a terror base against the state of Israel, Beirut needs to understand that it cannot continue to conduct business as usual.

Whoever chooses war against Israel must bear the consequences. My position is that we cannot tolerate a single tear from an Israeli mother, even if there are tears from a thousand Lebanese mothers, and we need to keep going.

“I appreciate the vice president, but I am more committed to our soldiers and our residents. They are the ones we are committed to. I want to say thank you to the Americans, but our red line is harming soldiers and harming civilians,” he added.

Ben-Gvir said: “Netanyahu needs to go to president Trump, embrace him, and say to him: ‘President Trump, thank you, but what can we do, we cannot fulfil this agreement. You wouldn’t tolerate having Nazis on your border. You wouldn’t tolerate your soldiers being attacked and being limited in terms of the response. Our response must be 100 percent.’”

This extreme rhetoric is commonplace for Ben Gvir, who has authority over Israel’s regular and militarised police forces. He was appointed security minister by Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, despite a number of convictions, including for incitement to racism and support for a proscribed Jewish terrorist organisation.

Asked whether he expected Iran to make Lebanon a “lynchpin” in the conflict, Vance said there has been “very good progress”.

The US vice-president said he wants to see a “regional ceasefire”.

Vance said:

We also want to make sure that when things happen, they don’t spiral into a broader escalation.

We’ve been very good at setting up what we’re calling a de-conflication mechanism but what it really is is to say that when things happen the sides are actually talking to one another.

He added that Israel has the right to self-defence but that it is important to have a process in place to avoid escalation. The last 24 hours have been among the most peaceful seen in Lebanon, he said.

If Iranian funds are ever unfrozen under a deal to end the Middle East war, Washington can ensure that the money does not finance terrorism, Vance insisted.

“If we ever unfreeze Iranian assets, we can ensure that... Iranian money goes to help the people of Iran and not to fund terrorism,” Vance told reporters at Burgenstock, maintaining that talks at the Swiss resort had made sure that “if Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, they’re going to go to make American farmers richer and to feed the Iranian people”.

When asked if the US wants Israel to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, JD Vance said Washington wants Israel’s “security to be protected” and for Lebanese sovereignty and integrity “to be protected”. “This is going to be an ongoing conversation,” he told the reporter who asked the question.

Vance said Israel has made it clear that it does not have “territorial intentions” in southern Lebanon (see this post for reasons why this is not exactly true) and said Iran will have to “rein” in Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group which it has funded and backed for decades, so it no longer poses a threat to northern Israel.

JD Vance was asked if he expected Iran to tie its talks with the US to Lebanon as closely as they have done and for his view on how he sees developments on Lebanon. The US vice president replied that “very good progress” has been made on Lebanon, agreeing with the Iranian foreign minister’s comments earlier (see this post for more details).

Vance said the US wants a regional ceasefire and for Hezbollah to stop firing at America’s “friends in Israel”. “We want Israelis to be able to live in peace.”

He went on:

We also want to make sure that when things happen they don’t spiral into a broader escalation.

And so we’ve been I think very good at setting up what we are calling a ‘deconfliction mechanism’ but what it really is is to say that when things happen the sides are actually talking to one another.

Sometimes you have got a little bit of a chicken and egg problem – that you have got a junior guy who fires a drone that didn’t have approval from the high command.

Okay, of course Israel has to respond to that but then sometimes that response we could actually have a better and more peaceful situation if Israel responds in the context of a conversation that is ongoing between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel and other partners in the region.

There really hasn’t been a mechanism to have those discussions until basically around 4pm yesterday Bürgenstock time when we set that up.

So, what we are trying to do is to say first of all Israel and every other nation in the region has the right of self-defence but we want to make sure that everybody has that right of self-defence in the background where we are talking about how to de-escalate these conflicts.

Vance claimed that the last 24 hours has “probably” been the “most peaceful” Lebanon has seen recently. He didn’t mention Israel’s continuing occupation of swathes of southern Lebanon, something that Hezbollah, which is demanding a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory, has said is completely unacceptable.

When asked how soon IAEA inspectors could come to Iran, JD Vance said nuclear inspectors were called at 2am last night – but no one picked up the call.

“As you can expect, not many people are answering their phone at two in the morning,” the vice president said. “I expect that will happen at the minimum this week, but we think even some of those conversations with the inspectors and with the IAEA could happen as soon as today.”

China welcomes Iran ⁠and the US starting follow-up talks on a ⁠memorandum of ⁠understanding, the country’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said ⁠in a meeting on ​Monday ‌with Iran’s senior ‌security official in India.

“Maintaining and ‌implementing the Memorandum of Understanding will help consolidate the hard-won ceasefire, open new prospects for Iran-US relations,” Wang told ‌Ghadir Nezami, according a statement from his ministry.

China ​backs Iran in safeguarding its sovereignty and dignity and improving ties with Gulf ⁠and regional countries, Wang said, adding ​that ​Beijing is ​willing to provide ​help to restore regional peace.

Analysts say China has benefited greatly from the US-Israel war on Iran, which showed the limits of American power abroad. Beijing’s diplomatic clout grew after promoting itself as a proponent of peace during the conflict and rising oil prices hurt the US more than China, whose fossil fuel stockpiles and diversified energy mix insulated it from the worst of the oil shock resulting from the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz.

My colleagues Seham Tantesh and Julian Borger filed this report on 28 May so the casualty figure (of 900) is outdated – but it gives some useful context about the Hamas-Israel ‘ceasefire’:

Benjamin Netanyahu has said he has given orders to the Israeli army to seize control of 70% of the Gaza Strip in a move that threatens to torpedo an already fragile ceasefire and create catastrophic humanitarian conditions in the already devastated territory.

Under the US-brokered ceasefire in October, the Israeli army withdrew to a demarcation line which gave Israel direct control of 53% of the occupied territory. Since then, Israeli forces have steadily advanced their positions westward into the Hamas-controlled half of the strip, and declared an ever-expanded no man’s land west of that, within which they claim the right to decide who can enter and open fire on anyone perceived as a threat.

Throughout the eight months of the ceasefire, Israeli forces have continued to open fire on Palestinians within range of the “yellow line” splitting the strip, and carry out airstrikes deeper inside western Gaza, killing more than 900 Palestinians since the truce began.

A UN security council resolution passed in November, delegated the monitoring of the ceasefire to a Trump-appointed Board of Peace, which named a Bulgarian UN veteran diplomat, Nickolay Mladenov, as “high representative in Gaza”.

Mladenov was widely criticised for his report to the security council last week, which assigned primary blame for the failings of the ceasefire on Hamas, accusing it of refusing to disarm, without holding Israel accountable for its violations. Hamas has signalled it is ready to discuss disarmament once Israel has fulfilled its obligations under the first phase of the ceasefire, in particular by ceasing the bombardment of Gaza and withdrawing to the original yellow line.

According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, a high school student was killed and several other civilians were injured earlier today in an Israeli attack on a civilian vehicle in Gaza City. The Gaza health ministry says at least 1,021 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ‘ceasefire’ between Israel and Hamas came into effect in October 2025.

In a post on X, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said US-Iran talks have concluded “successfully” ⁠in Switzerland, adding that discussions produced agreement on the establishment of a “high-level committee” to provide “political oversight” of the talks which are now entering a more “technical” phase.

“I commend the leadership of both the United States as well as Iran for their continued commitment to constructive engagement, and thank all brotherly and friendly countries for their valuable support in advancing this historic process,” Sharif, a key mediator between the US and Iran, wrote in his social media post. He praised Qatar for its mediation efforts and Switzerland for hosting the high-level diplomatic talks.

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said he held a phone call with his New Zealand counterpart, Winston Peters, in which he claimed that Israel had no “territorial ambitions” in Lebanon. Here is his full statement:

I said that Israel will respect the ceasefire in Lebanon as long as it won’t be breached by Hezbollah. We don’t have territorial ambitions in Lebanon, but we will not withdraw from the security zone and expose our citizens to Hezbollah’s attacks and possible invasion. Lebanon’s sovereignty has been breached for decades to this very day by Iran’s indirect occupation by Hezbollah. It’s the interest of both Lebanon and Israel that Hezbollah’s terror state will be dismantled. I invited the FM to Israel.

Both Israel and Hezbollah, which has been supported and funded by Iran for decades, have violated the ceasefire agreements meant to stop fighting between them, with near-daily cross-border strikes. Israel’s attacks have killed many civilians despite claims they are only targeting Hezbollah. Contrary to what Sa’ar suggested in his X post, Israel’s military actions and statements have fuelled fears of long-term occupation inside south Lebanon as Israeli troops pushed deeper into Lebanese territory across the border. Israel published a map on Thursday showing an expanded ​military “control zone” in the south and said it would not rule out carrying out attacks beyond it.

Israel launched a ground invasion into Lebanon in late March in response to Hezbollah firing rockets at northern Israel to avenge the US-Israeli killing of the former Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in Tehran. Evacuation warnings, some stretching beyond the areas under its control, have forced over one million Lebanese people to flee. Unlike previous occupations of southern Lebanon, Israel has warned civilians against returning. Several villages along the border have been largely demolished.

According to the Lebanese presidency’s office, Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun has had a call with the US vice president JD Vance, Donald Trump’s son-in-law/adviser Jared Kushner and Qatar’s prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani.

“The discussion in the call addressed the issue of consolidating the ceasefire in Lebanon, halting the Israeli military escalation, and the steps that must be taken in this regard, including the possibility of forming a cell for this purpose,” according to a social media post by the office.

Lebanon was drawn into the war when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on 2 March to avenge the US-Israeli killing of Iran’s former supreme leader in Tehran in late February.

More than a million people have since been displaced by Israel’s renewed war on Lebanon, sparking a refugee and humanitarian crisis.

Some Lebanese people have cautiously returned to their homes in the south since the announcement of the framework US-Iran peace deal, but many have stayed away fearing a resumption in full-scale attacks.

Others don’t have any homes to return to because Israel has levelled entire villages inside the so-called “yellow line”, a large area that has been occupied by Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border, as my colleague William Christou notes in this story.

At least 4,106 people, including many women and children, have been killed and 12,153 injured by Israeli attacks since 2 March, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah has killed dozens of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and at least three Israeli civilians.

Hezbollah chief Naim ​Qassem yesterday reportedly rejected any Israeli security zone in Lebanon and said the ⁠militant group would ​respond to any ​violation from the Israeli side. In a televised address, he was quoted as having said: Israeli troops “remaining on Lebanese land is impossible. There are no security zones for Israel... we have a national army which deploys, and it is responsible for preserving sovereignty, and it is who we cooperate with”.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said Israel has no intention of withdrawing from Beaufort castle in southern Lebanon. In a statement to X last night, he said: “Israel has no intention of withdrawing from the Beaufort, which is an integral part of the security zone in Lebanon and essential for the defense of the Galilee settlements and IDF forces.”

“As prime minister Netanyahu and I have clarified - Israel will not withdraw from the security zone in Lebanon.”

The Israeli military, which already controlled territory up to the Litani River, captured the strategic castle at the end of May, as Israeli troops moved deeper into Lebanese territory.

It had symbolic significance because the Israeli military had used the castle, also known as Qalaat al-Shaqif, as a base during its previous occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000.

The Israeli newspaper Hareetz is reporting that ambassador-level talks this week between Israel and Lebanon will establish “pilot areas” which will be under exclusive control of the Lebanese military, meaning the IDF will have to leave some of the areas they currently occupy. It is not immediately clear if an Israeli withdrawal from Beaufort castle is planned.

Under the reported plan, the Lebanese forces’ conduct in those specified “pilot areas” would be under close American supervision and Lebanon’s army would also take control of some areas not currently held by Israel.