Middle East live: US

Donald Trump has just been posting to his social media platform Truth Social with further threats to Iran.

double quotation markIran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP

It comes just after US vice-president JD Vance had hailed the “great progress” made in the last few hours as he gives update on US-Iran peace talks taking place in Switzerland today.

Trump was referring to Hezbollah, which joined the Middle East war with attacks on Israel. Clashes in recent days between the two have threatened to derail the US-Iran preliminary peace deal.

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday killed at least 16 people, local authorities said, despite reports of a renewed ceasefire aiming to end the continuing clashes.

Lebanon’s civil defence agency said its personnel transported “16 dead and 12 wounded” to hospital, adding that they had been working “since the early morning hours” in the Nabatieh district.