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Middle East crisis live: Iran says ceasefire must include Lebanon amid strait of Hormuz impasse; Trump vents anger at Nato

The Red Cross said it was “outraged by the devastating death and destruction” in densely populated areas across Lebanon as Israel launched a massive wave of attacks on Wednesday. Heavy explosive weapons struck bustling neighbourhoods, including in Beirut, without effective advance warnings, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. “Many who had begun thinking of the moment when they might return to their homes have been rushing to streets and hospitals, searching for missing loved ones or seeking a safety that feels increasingly out of reach,” said Agnes Dhur, the ICRC’s head of delegation in Lebanon. At least 182 people were killed and 890 wounded on Wednesday, according to the latest Lebanese health ministry toll. Here are some of the images from those Israeli strikes.

At least 254 killed after Israel hits Lebanon with massive wave of airstrikes

Israel has carried out its largest attack on Lebanon since its war with Hezbollah began, killing at least 254 people and wounding 837, an assault that prompted Iranian officials to warn Tehran could withdraw from the ceasefire agreed with the US overnight. Warplanes levelled several buildings in the centre of Beirut, filling the skies with smoke in what Israel’s defence minister said was “a surprise strike” on the pro-Iranian group Hezbollah. The Lebanese capital was filled with cars crumpled by the blasts and the flaming wreckage of buildings that first responders struggled to extinguish, as Israel bombed more than 100 Hezbollah military sites across Lebanon. The office of Israel’s prime minister said the two-week Middle East ceasefire did not include Lebanon, contrary to a statement made by mediator Pakistan – while Trump, after initially remaining silent, said Lebanon was “a separate skirmish” and not part of the deal. Hospitals in Lebanon put out urgent calls for blood donations , while the ministry of health urged people to “clear the streets” so ambulances could reach the injured. People rushed home to check on their families. A man was filmed as he ran towards a struck building in the Chiyah neighbourhood, screaming: “There are people inside!” Pictures of rubble-covered children circulated on social media as people tried to find their parents. “I have a friend in this building – Mahmoud. I don’t know where he is. He’s not answering his phone. We need to stop this war, it’s getting ridiculous,” said Shaden Fakih, a 24-year-old calisthenics trainer who was present when an Israeli strike brought down a building in the Barbour neighbourhood of central Beirut. Iranian sources told Iran’s Tasnim news agency that the country was ready to exit the ceasefire agreement if Israel “persists in violating the truce in Lebanon”, and the crisis was discussed by Iran’s foreign minister and his Pakistani counterpart. Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said the two theatres – Iran and Lebanon – were separate and that the aim was to “change the reality in Lebanon and remove threats from the residents of the north”. The Israeli politician went on to directly threaten Hezbollah’s leader. “We warned Naim Qassem that Hezbollah will pay a very heavy price for attacking Israel on Iran’s behalf – and Naim Qassem’s personal turn will come too,” he said. The Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesperson suggested Israel would begin striking deeper in Beirut, having previously confined most of its strikes to the southern suburbs, where support for Hezbollah is common. The spokesperson said Hezbollah was “repositioning itself” in mixed neighbourhoods of the city and vowed to pursue Hezbollah fighters no matter their location. Shortly after the statement, Israel brought down another building in the Tallet al-Khayet neighbourhood of west Beirut, which had not yet been hit in this war. The suggestion that strikes could hit anywhere in Beirut terrified the city’s residents. “Where can I go? All of Lebanon is being struck. [Israel] finished with Iran and now they want to start with us,” a resident present at the time of the Barbour strike said, asking not to be identified. The scale of Wednesday’s strikes were condemned as “horrific” by the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk. “Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief. It places enormous pressure on a fragile peace, which is so desperately needed by civilians,” he said. The Red Cross said it was “outraged by the devastating death and destruction” in densely populated areas across Lebanon, adding that the country had been once again plunged into “panic and chaos”. Trump said he was aware of the Israeli bombing, and said Lebanon was “not included in the deal” because of Hezbollah. Asked if the Israeli attacks were acceptable to him, the US president said it was “a separate skirmish”. Until the wave of airstrikes by Israel across Lebanon on Wednesday, Hezbollah had not announced any attacks against Israel since the ceasefire announcement – a first since the war between it and Israel began on 2 March. Initially Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, said Iran, the US and their allies had “agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere” as he announced the ceasefire overnight. Highways leading south in Lebanon were choked with traffic as dawn broke. Residents were attempting to return to their homes, though Hezbollah urged people not to return to certain villages because Israeli troops remained there. Iran’s 10-point peace plan, nominally accepted as a basis for negotiations by Trump, called for an end of the war against “all components of the ‘axis of resistance’”, which, for Tehran, includes Hezbollah. There were signs on Tuesday that the wider diplomatic conversation, mediated in Pakistan between the US and Iran, had come to a conclusion without Israel’s immediate input. Trump called Netanyahu to inform the Israeli leader of his decision shortly before making his ceasefire announcement. The Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said Netanyahu had failed politically and strategically. “There has never been such a political disaster in all of our history. Israel wasn’t even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security,” he posted in the morning. Later on Wednesday Netanyahu said Israel remained prepared to confront Iran if necessary, as it still had “objectives to complete”, with the military saying it continued to pursue the goal of “disarming” Hezbollah in Lebanon. The five-week war in Lebanon has brought the country to breaking point. More than 1.1 million people have been forcibly displaced, many of whom are left living on the streets. More than 1,530 people had been killed and 4,812 wounded by Israeli airstrikes, Lebanon’s ministry of health said on Tuesday. Several air raids on Israel took place in the first part of the night but stopped shortly before 3.30am, about 40 minutes after the Pakistani prime minister’s ceasefire announcement. No incoming attacks have been reported since.

How KFC, AKA Korean fried chicken, took over the world

Inside a teaching kitchen south-east of Seoul, I coat a whole chicken – cut into eight parts – in batter and dip the pieces carefully into a bowl of powdered mix until covered in a light, fluffy layer. A chef watches intently. “Don’t rub it,” he says. “Keep it delicate.” The chicken, already brined in what I’m told is a secret marinade, goes into a fryer filled with an olive oil blend, heated to 170C. I slowly lower the pieces a third of the way, then drop them in away from myself to avoid splashing. I set a timer for 10 minutes. This is Chicken University,a sprawling campus with a giant chicken statue at the entrance. It exists to train would-be owners of the BBQ Chicken franchise chain through a two-week residential programme. More than 50,000 people have passed through its classrooms. This humble dish is relatively simple, and is not even traditional Korean cuisine, but it is part of a national obsession that has gone global, both physically and culturally as part of the K-food wave. The country has been only half-jokingly dubbed the Republic of Fried Chicken. South Korea has around 40,000 fried chicken restaurants – just a few thousand short of the number of McDonald’s branches worldwide. Most are small, family-run operations. But now, Korean chicken brands operate more than 1,800 stores in around 60 countries, nearly double the number of stores a decade ago. From London to Los Angeles, Korean fried chicken appears on the menu. It is the most popular Korean food among international consumers, according to a South Korean government survey of about 11,000 consumers across 22 cities, spanning Asia, Europe, the Americas and Australia. From post-war import to K-food export South Korea’s most successful culinary export is not traditionally Korean. Fried chicken arrived with American soldiers stationed in the country after the Korean war, but the technique that made it distinctly Korean emerged decades later. About 1980, a chicken shop owner in the southern city of Daegu, Yoon Jong-gye, noticed customers abandoning their chicken once it grew cold, when the meat became dry. So he began experimenting with brining the chicken to keep it juicy and a glaze made from chilli powder. A neighbourhood grandmother suggested adding corn syrup. The result was yangnyeom chicken – sweet, sticky and spicy – and still appealing at room temperature. Yoon never patented his recipe and died in December 2025 at 74, having watched his invention spread far beyond his tiny shop where it began. Korean chicken brands had been expanding internationally since the early 2000s, but the cultural breakthrough came in 2014, when the Korean drama My Love from the Star became a sensation across China. A line from its lead character – that “on the day of the first snow, you should have chicken and beer” – reportedly triggered queues outside Korean chicken restaurants, even during an avian flu outbreak. Chimaek, the portmanteau meaning “fried chicken and beer” from the Korean words “chikin” and “maekju”, has since become a cultural shorthand, even entering the Oxford English Dictionary. It describes as much an act of collective pleasure as a meal: friends gathered around a table, with a plate of chicken at the centre and draught beer within reach. Every July, Daegu hosts a chimaek festival that draws more than a million visitors. The secret to ‘extra crispy’ One defining feature of Korean fried chicken is how it is served. Kim Ki-deuk, who has run an independent chicken shop near Korea University in Seoul with his wife Baek Hye-kyeong for more than 20 years, puts it simply. “In fast food places, they may sell one or several pieces,” he says. “Korean chicken is one full bird.” Technique is another factor, though methods vary. At shops like Kim and Baek’s, chicken is fried twice. “We fry it once first, then when the customer orders, we fry it again,” he says. “Otherwise it gets soggy. That’s what makes it extra crispy.” The batter, typically made with potato or corn starch, holds up under the sauce – whether a sweet-spicy yangnyeom glaze or a soy-garlic coating – allowing it to stay crisp long after it has been boxed up for delivery. Prof Joo Young-ha, a cultural anthropologist at the Academy of Korean Studies who specialises in food culture, argues that Korean chicken’s global success stems from its simplicity. “Unlike pork, chicken crosses religious prohibition boundaries,” he says. “And unlike kimchi, which is treated like a side dish, or bibimbap, which isn’t immediately obvious as a dish, fried chicken is immediately recognisable as a meal.” Beyond its global appeal, fried chicken’s rise in South Korea reflects something about modern life there. Prof Joo traces its rise to the 1980s and 1990s, when apartment living, dual-income households, and delivery culture were reshaping Korean life. Fried chicken, fast, convenient, and boxed for takeaway, fitted the moment. The industry has long attracted mid-career Koreans seeking a route back to income after leaving corporate jobs, though the market is fiercely competitive and margins are thin. Back at their fried chicken shop, Kim Ki-deuk slides another batch of chicken gizzards, another popular menu item, into the crackling oil. “Same as usual,” one customer says. “It’s great that Korean chicken is known worldwide,” Kim says, wiping down the counter between orders. “Chicken is for everyone, young and old. “Korea is such a small place. One bird doing all this work, introducing our country, our culture. It’s quite something.”

Ministers unveil ‘right to try’ plan to help disabled people find work

The government has unveiled its plan to allow disabled people to try work without fear of losing their benefits, but campaigners warn the policy does not go far enough to tackle hostile workplaces. Legislation laid before parliament on Thursday will mean that people who start work or volunteering no longer automatically face a benefit reassessment, a prospect disabled people said was holding them back from trying to gain employment. The government said people were being “stranded in the benefits system” and afraid of trying work through fear of losing their support. Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, said: “We are doing this as a reassurance to people, to allay their fears, because it has come through really clearly that people would like to work but the fear of losing benefits is holding them back. “We’ve also applied it to volunteering because that very often is a crucial first step to getting back towards work and people have not been doing it because they are worried. But I think we are going to have to do more beyond what we’re putting in this legislation.” The new “right to try” policy, which will come into force at the end of the month, will apply to claimants of employment and support allowance, personal independence payment and the universal credit health element. Disability campaigners welcomed the news but warned it would not be enough to tackle the reasons disabled people struggled to gain work. James Taylor, a director at the disability charity Scope, said the policy was “a step in the right direction and could remove a real barrier for disabled people who want to take up work”. However, he added: “The odds are stacked against disabled people when it comes to finding suitable work. From inaccessible workplaces and inflexible jobs, to poor support and negative attitudes from employers. “The government must go further, and invest in voluntary and personalised employment support for disabled people ready to try work. And rule out further cuts to benefits, which only push disabled people deeper into poverty, not jobs.” Research by Timewise, a flexible working nonprofit organisation, found that 2.5% of those who were economically inactive because of long-term sickness or disability returned to work each year, and more than half of these jobs lasted fewer than four months. “These dire statistics show how important a secure right to try is, where those trying work are guaranteed the same level of support they had before if things don’t work out,” said Mikey Erhardt of Disability Rights UK. He added disabled people wanted more reassurance from government that the right to try would not mean they returned to the system as new claimants or were forced to apply again. The announcement comes at the same time as a controversial cut to the health element of universal credit, which is being halved and then frozen for new claimants unless they meet stricter criteria. “The system as it was before was forcing people to aspire to be classified as too unwell to work,” said Timms at a visit to a jobcentre in Walthamstow, north-east London. Staff there said people had been getting their work capability assessment done earlier in order to still qualify for the higher amount. Disability campaigners said the cut would punish people at a time when they were already struggling financially. “It’s clear that in a time of great economic uncertainty, we are seeing a doubling down on ideas that fundamentally don’t work for disabled people,” said Erhardt. “For too long, successive governments have seen social security not as a safety net designed to support people in times of need, but as a threat they can use to push disabled people into the job market. This approach has always been nonsensical. “These new changes to universal credit health mean hundreds of thousands of disabled people will experience yet another cut in living standards.”

US ignoring evidence Russia is helping Iran because it trusts Putin, says Zelenskyy

The US has ignored compelling evidence that Russia has been helping Iran to target US bases in the Middle East because it “trusts” Vladimir Putin, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Speaking in an interview with Alastair Campbell on The Rest is Politics podcast, Zelenskyy said he had tried to draw the White House’s attention to the close collaboration between Moscow and Tehran. He said Russian military satellites had photographed critical energy infrastructure objects in the Gulf states and in Israel, as well as the locations of US army bases across the region. The Kremlin passed details and images to the Iranian regime, he said, to facilitate its attacks. “I said this publicly. Did we hear a reaction from the US to Russia that they have to stop it?” Zelenskyy asked rhetorically. He added: “The problem is they trust Putin. And it’s a pity.” Zelenskyy said Donald Trump’s team had failed to “really understand the details of what Russia wants”. Asked why this was, he said that Trump’s two negotiators – Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – had “spent too much time” with Putin and his senior officials. The pair travelled to Moscow five times last year and have yet to visit Kyiv. The Trump administration has piled pressure on Ukraine to cede its eastern Donbas region, the scene of intense fighting. Putin has suggested he would agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine gave up the territory. Zelenskyy said he had a greater understanding of the Russian leader’s psychology and actual war aims than the White House. Ukraine’s president said Putin would not stop if he got the Donbas, and would next try to seize the regional capitals of Dnipro and Kharkiv. “We have to recognise that partially Americans are feeling that [Donbas is] nothing for us,” Zelenskyy said. “They don’t want to recognise that Putin will lie to them and that he can continue the occupation even after such steps. The Americans are sure that they can trust Putin.” Zelenskyy described the trip by the US vice-president, JD Vance, to Budapest on Tuesday and Wednesday to campaign for Hungary’s president, Viktor Orbán, as “not helpful”. But he said he did not intend to interfere in Sunday’s elections, saying it was up to the Hungarian people to decide which party to back. Zelenskyy also suggested that Europe needed to maximise its power at a time when the US was threatening to withdraw from Nato. The EU needed to join forces with Ukraine, the UK, Turkey and Norway, he said, to create a military bloc big enough to deter Russia. “Without Ukraine and Turkey, Europe will not have a similar army that Russia has. With Ukraine, Turkey, Norway and the UK, you will control security on the seas, not one sea,” he said, adding that he was sure Kyiv would one day join the EU.

Middle East ceasefire threatens to unravel as Israel assaults Lebanon and Iran blocks oil tankers

The fate of the two-week ceasefire in the Iran conflict looked in peril on Wednesday as both sides gave divergent versions of what had been agreed, Israel intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon and Iran halted the passage of oil tankers because of an alleged Israeli ceasefire breach. Iran and Pakistan, which brokered the 11th-hour truce, both asserted that the ceasefire included Lebanon. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, disagreed and Israeli forces unleashed their heaviest attack of the war so far on more than 100 targets, killing at least 254 people. Donald Trump, after initially remaining silent, said Lebanon was “a separate skirmish” and not part of the deal. The scale of Israel’s attacks on Wednesday were condemned as “horrific” by UN rights chief Volker Turk. “Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief. It places enormous pressure on a fragile peace, which is so desperately needed by civilians,” he said. In a sharply worded statement, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Israel and the US had violated several clauses of the provisional ceasefire, and decried Israel’s aggressive bombing of Lebanon and a US demand that Iran should have no right to enrich its own uranium. “In such [a] situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations is unreasonable,” the statement read. While the statement did not announce Iran’s rejection of the ceasefire, it nonetheless indicated that tensions were strained less than 24 hours after Trump had announced that a ceasefire agreement had been reached. Iran’s Fars news agency said oil tankers passing through the strait of Hormuz had been stopped as a result of Israel’s “ceasefire breach”. Iran was due to have reopened the strait during the two weeks of the ceasefire, and the oil price had dropped sharply below $100 a barrel in the hours after the truce was announced, prompting a global stock market surge. The news did not bring any immediate relief for the hundreds of laden tankers trapped in the Gulf by the conflict, which were awaiting approval from insurers before beginning to move and reported continued interference with their satellite navigation systems. The White House called the reports from Iran’s state media about the closure of the strait of Hormuz “false” and said Trump expected it to reopen “immediately, quickly and safely”, as the US signalled continued hope in the ceasefire even as it threatened to unravel. Vice-president JD Vance said he believed the differing views on whether the ceasefire included Lebanon came from a “legitimate misunderstanding”. “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t,” he said. “We never made that promise.” Israel had offered to “check themselves a little bit in Lebanon” to aid the US negotiations, he added, but would not include it in the ceasefire. In Israel, opposition politicians led by Yair Lapid have criticised Netanyahu for failing to deliver the conclusive victory he had promised in the war and for delivering instead a “diplomatic disaster” that had eroded the trust between Israel and the United States. “We still have objectives to complete – and we will achieve them either by agreement or by resuming the fighting,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Wednesday evening. Marine traffic has continued at a trickle through the Hormuz strait but at a far lower rate than before the war. Five vessels were confirmed as having crossed the strait on Wednesday, four of which were Iranian and heading into the Gulf from the east, while the fifth was Greek-owned. AXSMarine, a French-founded global marine software and tracking company, said it was “unlikely to see a sudden flurry of vessels rushing for the strait given Iran’s conditions that passage had to be approved by its armed forces. “It is not the same as an open strait,” it said. The United Arab Emirates claimed its air defences had intercepted 17 ballistic missiles and 35 drones, apparently fired by Iran over the course of the day after the ceasefire announcement. Iran was also reported to have attacked a Saudi oil pipeline to the Red Sea hours after the truce was announced. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed on Wednesday to have struck several targets across the region with missiles and drones, including what the IRGC said were oil facilities of US companies in Yanbu, the Saudi Red Sea port and pipeline terminal. Trump conveyed a different version of the agreement in early Wednesday morning social media posts from the one he had suggested as he announced the ceasefire on Tuesday night. In the first version, he referred to Iran’s 10-point proposal as a “workable basis on which to negotiate”, and focused on an agreement to reopen the strait of Hormuz. The statement caused surprise in Washington as Iran’s 10 points differ widely from US objectives and include a right to enrich uranium, the full lifting of sanctions, the payment of war reparations and a scheme giving Iran and Oman joint control of the strait. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, said during a press conference on Wednesday: “The Iranians originally put forward a 10-point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded. The idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wishlist as a deal is completely absurd.” On Wednesday morning, Trump implied that the ceasefire was based on an entirely different 15-point proposal from the US, claiming many of the points had “already been agreed to”. He insisted there would be no enrichment of uranium and that the US and Iran would work together to unearth the Iranian stockpile of 440kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which Trump called “nuclear dust”, enough fissile material for a dozen nuclear warheads. Leavitt said a US negotiating team led by Vance, as well as Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would travel to Islamabad in Pakistan for talks set to begin this weekend. The negotiations with an Iranian delegation – expected to include its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi – will begin on Saturday. Iran has published two different versions of its interpretation of the agreement. The Farsi version included an acceptance of Iran’s right to enrich uranium. The English version did not. Araghchi confirmed Trump’s claim that the strait of Hormuz would be reopened during the two weeks of the ceasefire but said shipping would have to apply for safe passage through coordination with Iran’s armed forces. Iran’s military closed the strait – a freely navigable waterway before the war – in retaliation to the US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February and is now charging tankers a $2m-a-ship toll to pass through. Tehran’s apparent interpretation of the ceasefire is that it will allow all shipping to pass but keep the toll in place, eventually sharing the income with Oman as a co-custodian of the strait. Pakistan is expecting to host talks on Friday to start to cement the ceasefire into a more durable peace agreement, but on Wednesday the White House had yet to confirm attendance. The gaps to be bridged appeared as broad as ever, and certainly wider than at the last talks before the war, on 26 February in Geneva, where Omani mediators and British observers reported significant progress. At the Pentagon, the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, suggested that if there was no agreement on Iran’s HEU stockpile, US forces would “take it out”. Any operation to extract or destroy the uranium, thought to be stored in scuba tank-sized canisters and buried down deep shafts under mountains, would be long, complicated and risky. Trump opted not to pursue such a mission in the course of the five weeks of conflict, ultimately claiming he did not care about the HEU as it could be monitored remotely by satellite. The chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, said US forces remained poised for a return to combat. “A ceasefire is a pause, and the joint force remains ready if ordered or called upon,” Caine told reporters. He said the US air campaign in Iran had achieved its military objectives, striking more than 13,000 targets, destroying roughly 90% of Iran’s navy and 95% of its naval mines. Hegseth claimed the US and Israel had “finished completely destroying Iran’s industrial base” with a final wave of 800 airstrikes overnight on Tuesday. He listed the Iranian leaders killed in the war, including the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and claimed that his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei was “wounded and disfigured”. The defence secretary claimed, without evidence, that Iran had “begged for this ceasefire”. The Tehran government portrayed the truce in similarly triumphalist terms to its population. “America was forced to accept a ceasefire,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior politician and foreign policy adviser to the supreme leader, according to official media. “In the new geometry of power in the world, Iran will play a role as the axis of the Islamic pole.” Trump has been angered by the refusal of several western allies to support his war against Iran. Leavitt told reporters that the president planned to discuss the possibility of the US leaving Nato when he met with the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Wednesday. Asked whether the president would raise the prospect of withdrawing from Nato, Leavitt replied: “It’s something the president has discussed and I think it’s something the president will be discussing in a couple of hours with secretary general Rutte.” After the meeting, Rutte told CNN that he believes some Nato countries were tested and failed through the course of the war, but that the “large majority of European nations has been helpful with basing, with logistics, with overflight.”

Starmer says UK wants to help with opening of Hormuz strait on Gulf visit

The UK has a “job” to help reopen the strait of Hormuz, Keir Starmer has said, as Iranian reports said the key shipping route was closed again just hours after a supposed ceasefire. The prime minister met British and local military personnel at an airbase in Taif, Saudi Arabia, at the start of what is expected to be a wider trip to Gulf allies, one billed as a mirror to his efforts to pull together a plan for how a ceasefire might operate in Ukraine. While UK officials portrayed the visit as “complementary” to Pakistan-brokered talks between the US and Iran, Starmer is likely to be viewed in Gulf states as a more predictable and reliable partner than a US led by Donald Trump. The ceasefire was agreed little more than an hour before a deadline set by the US president, who had threatened that Iran’s “whole civilisation” would die if it did not meet US demands. As part of its terms, the strait of Hormuz was intended to be reopened, with Starmer’s trip aimed at building on a UK-led gathering of military planners on Tuesday as to how this could happen in practice. But Iran’s Fars news agency said oil tankers passing through the strait had been blocked again because of what it called a ceasefire breach by Israel, which has intensified its attacks on Lebanon. On Wednesday night Starmer met Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, in Jeddah. A statement from No 10 after the meeting said the prime minister had welcomed the ceasefire between the US and Iran and that he “set out how efforts must now be focused on upholding it and turning it into a lasting peace”. “He was clear that it was vital now to continue work to reopen the strait of Hormuz, and discussed the UK’s ongoing efforts to convene partners to agree and plan the practical steps required to give shipping the confidence to transit the strait.” It added: “The prime minister committed to continue to support Saudi Arabia as a steadfast ally including through the recent deployment of the Sky Sabre air defence system, having met UK personnel deployed to operate it earlier today. “The leaders then discussed how the UK and Saudi Arabia could further deepen their defence industrial cooperation to boost capability and mutual security for the long term, as well as continuing to grow their thriving trade and investment relationship.” Starmer’s discussions in the Gulf were expected to cover issues such as dealing with Iranian mines and ensuring the tankers that use the strait as a key transport route can be insured. “There are a lot of practicalities about how this might work, and given the situation, there are a lot of moving parts,” one UK official said. “This isn’t the sort of thing that happens at the flick of a switch.” Speaking to broadcasters at the King Fahd airbase earlier in the day, Starmer said that while there was a sense of relief at the ceasefire, it was “early days” in restoring full shipping traffic. “What people in the United Kingdom want to know, who will share that relief, is that this needs to be permanent, and it’s our job to work with other countries in the region, not only on the cessation of hostilities, but also on opening the strait of Hormuz,” he said. “Because the impact on our energy prices, you can see it on a daily basis over the last 39 days, it’s our job to make sure that the strait is open, that we’re able to get the energy that the world needs out and stabilise the prices back in the United Kingdom.” Starmer has provoked the ire of Trump several times during the conflict by refusing to support the initial US-Israeli attack on Iran, and by only allowing US forces to use UK airbases for missions seen as defensive, for example targeting Iranian missile sites. Speaking on Wednesday, the prime minister reiterated his stance that the UK was not “getting drawn into this war”. He said: “We’ve always acted in collective self-defence, but my job is to protect the UK lives, of course, which is what we’ve been doing here from this place, but also to protect our interests and through our interests, our national interest, to get the strait of Hormuz open.” Starmer’s timetable for the rest of the visit has not been announced, and it is not known which other Gulf countries he will travel to from Saudi Arabia. “The ceasefire is obviously good news, but we need to make sure that the strait of Hormuz is fully open, as this will have the biggest impact on people at home,” one government source said, likening Starmer’s role to that he had in convening the so-called coalition of the willing, the group of countries that offered to help guarantee any peace in Ukraine. “It is also the first opportunity for the PM to visit allies in the region and show that we stand with them.”

Relief in financial markets after Iran ceasefire – but it is far from absolute | Richard Partington

A plunge in the oil price, stock market rally and renewed hopes for the global economic outlook. After the announcement of a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war, the relief in financial markets was palpable. But it is far from absolute. For the past six weeks, the economic damage had been steadily mounting, as the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz by Tehran triggered the worst energy crisis of the modern era. Steps towards peace should limit further costs. Any progress towards reinstating shipments through the critical waterway for a fifth of global oil and gas supplies – in a world where fossil fuels still drive economic activity – will ease fears over an apocalyptic supply crunch. However, the situation remains highly volatile as Tehran and Washington issue conflicting messages about whether the Hormuz channel is open or not, and as Israel continues to strike Lebanon. With uncertainty over a durable peace in the Middle East, economic risks still remain. Enough damage has already been done to guarantee lasting consequences. Consumers are already feeling the pinch from prices for energy products that remain higher than before the war. Bombed-out oil and gas facilities, snarled-up shipping and halted production lines cannot be restored overnight. Even after the more than 10% fall in the oil price on Wednesday, Brent crude remains above $90 a barrel – significantly higher than before the start of the war, when the global oil benchmark traded below $73 a barrel. Relative to a lengthy conflict keeping the price above $100 a barrel, that still stands as progress. A worst-case scenario of persistently high oil prices could risk triggering recessions in multiple countries worldwide. However, despite the tentative steps towards peace, most economists forecast the oil price will remain above its prewar level throughout 2026. In its “baseline” postwar forecast, the consultancy Capital Economics predicts that the oil price declines but still ends the year at $80 a barrel. Under this scenario, headline inflation rises to about 3-4% year on year in the US and Europe, while GDP growth slows in most major economies. Economists say the unpredictability of both Iran and Donald Trump is adding to the uncertainty and risk. Before the conflict, few economists predicted Iran would follow through on threats to close the strait of Hormuz. The prospect of shutting the crucial waterway had been raised by Tehran before, during the almost half-century of tension with Washington since the 1979 Iranian revolution, without ever being acted upon. Given the channel’s importance for its own economy and the rest of the world, and likely US response any closure would draw, the stakes were perceived to be too high. That logic has now changed. As a result, this lasting uncertainty could hit activity, or at the very least add an additional premium to the cost of doing business. For a region serving as a linchpin for the world economy, this will have consequences far and wide. In a timely report on Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund makes this warning. Typically, it finds, wars since 1946 leave lasting “economic scars” that can take more than a decade to recover from. “Persistent political and economic uncertainty despite peace can continue to depress expected returns on investment, sustain capital outflows, and constrain both investment and labor supply,” the report says. The situation in the Middle East provides a clear present-day example.