Top updates: Israel says it will hold talks with Beirut, Lebanon toll rises

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said that Tel Aviv will begin direct negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible” amid the war in West Asia.

Netanyahu said that the decision was in light of Lebanon’s “repeated requests”, adding that Israel appreciates the call made by Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam “to demilitarise Beirut”. The negotiations will focus on the disarmament of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Tel Aviv and Beirut, he added.

While the ceasefire between Iran and the United States took effect on Wednesday, Israel claimed that the arrangement does not include Lebanon and continued its attacks on the country.

Here are more top updates from the conflict in West Asia:

• Deaths in Lebanon: The toll from Israeli air strikes on Lebanon after the ceasefire in the region on Wednesday has risen to 303, Emirati news agency WAM quoted the Lebanese health ministry as saying. More than 1,100 persons were injured in the attacks.
• The Israeli military on Wednesday said it had, in a 10-minute operation, conducted “the largest coordinated strike” in Lebanon since the conflict began. The strikes had targeted more than 100 structures allegedly associated with Hezbollah in Beirut, Beqaa and southern Lebanon, the Israeli forces said.
• More than 1,880 persons have been killed and more than 6,000 injured in Lebanon since March 2, when the Israeli attacks on the country began amid the broader conflict in the region.
• Iran to protect its rights, says supreme leader: Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written statement on Thursday that the country does not want war with the US and Israel, but would protect its rights as a nation, AFP quoted the state media as having reported. Khamenei has not been seen in public since succeeding his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening wave of Israeli-US attacks on February 28.
• “We will not renounce our legitimate rights under any circumstances, and in this respect, we consider the entire resistance front as a whole,” he was quoted as saying, in an apparent reference to Israeli strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah.
• Global oil flows: United States President Donald Trump on Thursday said that Iran was doing a “very poor job...of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz”, adding “that is not the agreement we have”.
• The price of benchmark Brent crude remained almost unchanged at $96.5 per barrel on Friday from a day earlier. The price was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

The war

The US and Israel launched an attack on Iran on February 28, claiming that Tehran’s action posed an existential threat to Israel. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Iran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region and targeting major cities in Gulf countries.

Tehran also effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterbody connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea, for most international commercial vessels, triggering a global energy crisis. About 20% of global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

Iran and the US reached a two-week ceasefire agreement on Wednesday, allowing for further negotiations to end the war.

Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance. Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.