Key facts
- Israel struck the port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, killing at least eight people.
- Israel and Iran halted direct attacks on each other following a U.S. appeal, but Iran warned of renewed hostilities if Israel continues attacking Hezbollah.
- Two U.S. helicopter crew members were rescued after their Apache gunship went down near the Strait of Hormuz.
- Two Iranian air defence personnel were killed in prior Israeli strikes.
- UN Secretary-General Guterres expressed alarm over Middle East violence and called for an end to attacks and the reopening of Gaza crossings.
Israel struck the historic port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, in an escalation that adds strain to efforts to broker a peace deal to end the wider Middle East war. The raids were the deadliest on Tyre since fighting erupted in Lebanon in early March. Israel had issued an evacuation order for the city earlier on Tuesday.
On Monday, Israel and Iran halted direct attacks on each other after an appeal by U.S. President Donald Trump, but Tehran warned it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to attack its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel's refusal to end its campaign in Lebanon, as Iran demands, has hindered Trump's efforts to extend a tenuous ceasefire in the wider U.S.-Israeli war with Iran into a durable settlement.
As a truce announced on April 8 largely holds in the war in the Gulf, Trump said two U.S. helicopter crew members were "fine" following their rescue by a U.S. Navy drone after their Apache gunship went down near the Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz. It was not clear whether the Apache had been shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure, or encountered another problem. A U.S. Navy surface drone found and rescued the two crew, the U.S. military told Reuters. U.S. Central Command said the AH-64 Apache went down at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday.
In Tehran, two Iranian air defence personnel were due to be buried on Tuesday afternoon after being killed in Israeli strikes the day before, Iran's military said. No deaths were reported in Israel after the Iranian strikes. Oil prices, which had risen on the exchange of fire between Israel and Iran, fell on Tuesday after the attacks were paused.
Trump told reporters he might have "an idea" for an Iran deal within a few days, without elaborating. U.S. and Israeli officials said Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken on Monday. In an interview with Axios, Trump said he had warned the Israeli leader not to return to war with Iran: "I said, 'Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.'"
Tehran has long said any peace deal with the U.S. depends in part on an end to fighting in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of Hezbollah fighters who had fired across the border. In northern Israel on Tuesday, Israeli troops operating in the Ramim Ridge area close to Lebanon's border killed one person in an incident in which they returned fire, the military said. Israel has never halted its Lebanon campaign, saying the conflict should be treated separately from any U.S.-Iranian ceasefire. Hezbollah has also continued its attacks. At the same time, Tehran has continued to block most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war carried a fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas. Washington has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports. Trump has said any peace deal must ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Iran's demands include the lifting of international sanctions, the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and recognition of its control of the strait.