Iran has reaffirmed support for its Lebanese ally ​Hezbollah and demanded that Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon, underscoring complications facing an interim deal to end the broader conflict between the U.S. and Iran, Reuters reported.

Tehran has made a ceasefire between ‌Israel and Hezbollah a condition for any peace deal with Washington to resolve the regional war, now in its fourth month, and restart shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The latest round of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel erupted at the start of March, two days after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Hezbollah said its actions were in support of Tehran.

“This war will end only when it ends in Lebanon as well,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Lebanese TV ​station Al Mayadeen late on Thursday.

“The end of the war on Lebanon must be accompanied by the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they have occupied,” he said.

The comments came ​after Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected a U.S.-brokered pact between Israel and the Lebanese government to halt the fighting in Lebanon. The deal did not provide for ⁠an Israeli withdrawal and Hezbollah had not been party to the negotiations.

Israel has kept up strikes in southern Lebanon, and has said its forces would not withdraw or halt operations in the country amid increasing friction ​with the U.S.

Hezbollah said on Friday it had carried out two attacks on Israeli troops in south Lebanon, including near the recently captured Beaufort Castle, while Lebanese security services said Israeli airstrikes hit towns across southern Lebanon, read the report.

Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said Hezbollah had “made great sacrifices in the recent war and it is our ally. Therefore, we support Hezbollah and remain firmly committed to our obligations toward it.”

In comments reported by the semi-official Mehr news agency, Rezaei cautioned Israel against following through on threats to resume strikes against Beirut, the Lebanese capital.

“Today we again warn this sinister regime to leave Lebanon. They should know that Lebanon will be an ​inseparable part of any agreement and any ceasefire,” he said.

Lebanon’s parliament speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri said on Friday he would agree to the withdrawal of the Iran-backed group from southern Lebanon if ​Israeli troops simultaneously left territory they occupy in the country.

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun on Friday accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of using Lebanon as a “bargaining chip” in negotiations with the U.S., telling CNN this was “unacceptable”.

Along with Lebanon, residents of ‌Gaza, northern ⁠Israel and Kuwait have all been under fire this week, despite U.S.-arranged ceasefires that President Donald Trump said involved “shooting in a more moderate manner”, rather than a total halt to fighting.

On Friday, Iran’s navy said it had fired warning shots at U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Oman to counter “maritime mischief and harassment and the hijacking of commercial vessels and oil tankers”. Earlier, U.S. forces said they had boarded an oil tanker in the Indian Ocean and that they would continue to block “vessels providing material support to Iran”.

The U.S. Central Command denied Iran’s claims.

“Iranian forces did NOT attack or fire at U.S. Navy warships. Doing so would be ​a gross violation of the ceasefire,” Central Command ​said in a statement on X.

In Oman, an ⁠alleged drone attack forced the suspension of oil loading at the Mina al Fahal terminal after an explosion, sources said, before normal operations resumed.

After the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on February 28, Tehran fired missiles and drones against Gulf states hosting U.S. bases ​and largely stopped shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trade remains at a fraction of its former levels through the waterway, which previously carried about ​a fifth of global oil ⁠and liquefied natural gas supplies.

The conflict has driven up oil prices and disrupted supply chains for other products. The U.N. World Food Programme said on Friday that it was pushing millions of people closer to hunger due to rising fuel and transport costs, Reuters reported.

The U.S. and Iran have been engaged in largely indirect negotiations to secure an interim deal to halt the war that would leave issues including Iran’s nuclear programme to further negotiations.

As part of any agreement, Tehran ⁠wants access to ​billions of dollars in oil revenue, waivers on sanctions on crude exports, the lifting of a U.S. blockade on its ​ports and leverage over the strait.

Trump, who faces domestic pressure over an unpopular war, has said his top priority is to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic program is for peaceful purposes.

Iranian parliament deputy speaker Hamid-Reza Haji Babaei said on Friday that ​uranium enrichment was Iran’s right, and that Trump had failed to understand that Iran’s “most powerful atomic bomb” was the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. President ​Donald Trump on Thursday said ‌that Washington did not need a deal with Iran to ​get enriched uranium ​from the country, Reuters reported.

“We could get ⁠it right now. I ​don’t think they could ​stop us if we wanted, but there’s no reason to. ​It’s entombed,” he told ​reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump also ‌said ⁠that he did not want to meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba ​Khamenei.

But ​he ⁠added that if Washington and Tehran ​reached a deal, it ​was ⁠possible that the two would meet and added: “If ⁠it ​happened … I’d be ​respectful”.

Gulf hostilities flared again on Wednesday, with an Iranian missile attack damaging Kuwait’s airport and the U.S. military carrying out strikes near ​the Strait of Hormuz, as diplomacy between Washington and Tehran showed little progress.

The latest flare-up, which sent oil prices up more than 1%, comes with the conflict stalemated in a shaky ‌ceasefire and the Strait of Hormuz largely closed, more than three months after initial U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, Reuters reported.

Flights at Kuwait International Airport were suspended and diverted elsewhere until further notice, the state news agency said, citing aviation authorities, after an Iranian drone and missile attack on its T1 building.

The attack caused injuries and severely damaged some airport facilities, it added, but gave no further details. Kuwait Airways suspended operations after the attack, the airline said in a statement.

Bahrain’s army intercepted three missiles and several ​drones, it said in a statement.

Earlier, the U.S. Central Command said two Iranian missiles shot at Kuwait fell short or broke up in flight, while several ballistic missiles aimed at regional targets failed ​and three missiles heading for Bahrain were intercepted.

Since the conflict began, Iran has repeatedly attacked targets in the Gulf region home to U.S. military bases.

Central Command ⁠said the U.S. military also downed Iranian drones targeting civilian ships in regional waters and U.S. forces in Kuwait, and carried out strikes on Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz following attempted attacks by Iran.

Iran’s ​state media said the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attacked the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, as well as an airbase and helicopters in an unspecified regional country.

It sent missiles and drones in response ​to what the IRGC described as a U.S. attack on a communications tower south of Qeshm.

Central Command said all the attacks failed, however, and U.S. forces stayed ready to repel “unwarranted Iranian aggression.”

Last week, Iran and the United States said they had reached a tentative initial agreement to halt the war, but they have yet to sign off on the deal.

Iranian media said Tehran has not communicated with Washington for several days, but U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations had not stopped.

“The conversations between us ​have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today,” he said in a social media post.

DISCUSSIONS ON NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Since mid-March, Trump has repeatedly said he ​is close to a deal to end the fighting and allow negotiators to tackle thorny issues, including the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump has said his top priority is to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran denies it is developing a ‌nuclear bomb and ⁠says its atomic program is for peaceful purposes.

Tehran is seeking access to billions of dollars in oil revenues, waivers on crude exports, a lifting of a U.S. blockade on its ports and continued leverage over the strait, traversed by a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas traffic before the war.

Iranian media said the IRGC’s navy targeted a vessel it identified as the Panaya with missiles in response to what it said was a U.S. attack on an Iranian tanker near Hormuz.

“Disrupting the security of the Strait of Hormuz will carry a heavy price for the U.S. military,” media cited the IRGC as saying.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ​told lawmakers on Tuesday that the U.S. would agree ​to sanctions relief only if Iran agreed to ⁠give up its nuclear activity.

“The war is over,” Rubio declared during a sharp exchange with Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who disagreed.

ISRAEL KEEPS UP STRIKES IN LEBANON

The war has killed thousands since it began on February 28, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, while also causing global economic pain by pushing up energy prices.

It ​also triggered the latest round of conflict between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, with Israel pursuing its deepest incursion into Lebanon in 25 years.

On Tuesday, Israel kept ​up strikes on a string ⁠of southern towns, Lebanese security sources said, despite a U.S.-mediated partial ceasefire unveiled on Monday.

The move failed to reassure many Lebanese, 1.2 million of whom have been displaced, and an Israeli drone over Beirut kept residents on edge on Tuesday.

“Every time we return to our homes, there is a warning for us to be displaced again,” said Faten Al Chehime, who fled to a displacement camp on Monday from her home in Beirut’s southern suburbs, just two weeks after ⁠she had returned.

On ​Tuesday, the world’s largest shipping group, MSC, said two projectiles struck one of its vessels while in Iraq’s Umm Qasr port the previous ​day.

The IRGC said it carried out the attack in retaliation for a U.S. attack on an Iranian vessel in the Gulf of Oman.

Children’s agency UNICEF flagged the widening humanitarian crisis as surging transport prices and supply chain disruptions hinder life-saving aid to countries from Gaza ​to Nigeria.