Lebanon announced ​a partial ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel on Monday in what would amount to a limited de-escalation of a conflict that has ‌killed thousands of people and inflamed the broader U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

According to Lebanon’s embassy in Washington, the agreement would not end the conflict in that country. But it calls for Israel to refrain from strikes on Beirut and its suburbs controlled by Hezbollah, while the Iran-aligned group would halt its attacks on Israel, Reuters reported.

Hostilities in southern Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March, continued ​on Monday evening. Early on Tuesday, the Israeli military said that it intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel, and that no ​injuries were reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who first announced the agreement, said Hezbollah, through intermediaries, had pledged not to attack Israel. ⁠No U.S. president has ever spoken with Hezbollah, with or without intermediaries. The U.S. has designated the group as a terrorist organization.

Trump also said Israeli Prime ​Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to pull back any troops preparing to attack Beirut.

After Trump’s announcement, Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations in southern Lebanon, where ground ​forces are pushing toward the Zaharani River, their deepest incursion in Lebanon in 25 years.

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said the militia would support a full ceasefire across all Lebanon as a precursor to the withdrawal of Israeli troops. He did not say whether the group would stop its strikes on Israeli territory.

Lebanon said it would seek to expand the ceasefire in talks ​with Israel in Washington on Wednesday.

That could clear the path for renewed efforts to end the three-month-old war that began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. The ​process has been stuck in limbo for weeks under a fragile ceasefire as negotiators have been unable to agree on an initial framework for peace talks.

The Israel-Hezbollah war erupted on ‌March 2 ⁠as an offshoot of the broader conflict and has been entangled with it ever since.

Iran has insisted on a halt to Israeli attacks in Lebanon as a condition of any deal to end the war, while the U.S. has said the two conflicts are separate.

“The ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a statement.

IRAN THREATENS TO BREAK OFF TALKS

Iranian state media said earlier on Monday ​that Tehran was halting indirect peace negotiations with ​the U.S. and might end a ⁠ceasefire that has largely held since early April, citing the war in Lebanon.

There was no direct confirmation of the reports from Iranian officials, and Trump told an NBC reporter that he had not heard from Iran. He said in a CNBC interview on ​Monday that the peace talks had “started to get very boring” and that he did not care if they were ​over.

“I really don’t ⁠care, I couldn’t care less,” Trump said, opens new tab.

Since mid-March, Trump has repeatedly said he is close to signing a peace agreement but has yet to do so. Despite the ceasefire, Iran and the U.S. have exchanged strikes several times over the past week.

Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, Esmaeil Qaani, threatened to expand its blockade of the Strait ⁠of Hormuz ​to the Bab El Mandeb Strait, another chokepoint at the mouth of the Red Sea.

Iran has already ​bottled up maritime traffic in the Gulf that before the war provided one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, sending prices sharply higher.

Oil prices rose 4% on Monday on the heightened tensions.

A mine shaft collapse during an illegal mining operation in China’s ​southwestern Yunnan province killed five people ‌and injured one, state media reported, days after the country’s deadliest mining accident since 2009 left ​at least 82 dead.

The incident occurred ​around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday (2030 GMT on ⁠Saturday) in Yunnan’s Huize County, state ​news agency Xinhua reported, citing local authorities. ​The report did not specify what mineral was being mined.

There was only one survivor out of six ​people rescued from the site and ​sent to hospital, Xinhua said, and the person ‌was ⁠in stable condition.

Authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the incident, which follows the May 22 deadly gas explosion ​at a ​coal ⁠mine in the northern Shanxi province. Apart from the 82 people ​killed, two remain missing and ​128 ⁠were injured.

Chinese authorities have vowed a thorough investigation into the Shanxi disaster, as preliminary ⁠findings ​uncovered unmarked tunnels, missing trackers and ​fake doors at the mining site.

Iran and the United States are in discussions to extend their ceasefire so as to start negotiations on issues including Tehran’s nuclear program, where Washington insists Iran must not be able to make a nuclear weapon, Reuters reported.

While much of Iran’s uranium enrichment infrastructure was destroyed or badly damaged when Israel and the U.S. bombed ​it in June, a large part of the highly enriched uranium it amassed is thought to have survived. That is the biggest U.S. concern ahead ‌of nuclear talks.

On Friday Trump said in a social media post that Iran must agree that the enriched uranium buried underground after earlier U.S. strikes be “unearthed” and destroyed in coordination with Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

WHAT IS HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM?

One of two fissile materials, along with plutonium, with which one can make the core of a nuclear bomb.

While plutonium is usually extracted from the spent fuel ​of a nuclear reactor, requiring large and highly visible infrastructure, uranium can be enriched using centrifuges that have a much smaller footprint.

Two of Iran’s three enrichment sites ​that are known to have been operating when Israel and the U.S. attacked in June were underground. The above-ground one was clearly destroyed.

Uranium ⁠is highly enriched when it has reached 20% purity, and weapons-grade as of around 90%.

Modern reactors generally use fuel enriched to up to 5%, but some use fuel ​enriched to higher levels. The ones that power U.S. nuclear submarines reportedly use fuel enriched beyond 90%.

HOW MUCH DOES IRAN HAVE?

Iran has not informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog of ​the fate of its enriched uranium since the June attacks or let its inspectors return to the sites where it was stored.

The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates Iran had these amounts when the first Israeli bombs fell on June 13:

– 440.9 kg enriched to up to 60%

– 184.1 kg enriched to up to 20%

– 6,024.4 kg enriched to up to 5%

– 2,391.1 kg enriched to up to ​2%

According to an IAEA yardstick, the amount at 60% is enough, if enriched further, for 10 nuclear weapons. The 20% stock would be enough for one and the ​5% could produce 12, read the report.

How much has survived is unclear. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said his agency believes “a bit more than 200 kg” of the 60% stock is stored at a tunnel complex ‌in Isfahan that ⁠appears to have been largely unharmed by the June attacks. Some was also at the Natanz nuclear site, he said.

WHY THE CONCERN?

U.S. concern has been focused on the 60% material because that would be easiest and thus quickest to make a bomb with. Washington wants it gone. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

As the enrichment level of uranium increases, it becomes exponentially easier to enrich further. Getting from 60% to 90% is easier than getting from unenriched to 5%.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of a nuclear deal ​between Iran and major powers that kept ​Tehran at a far greater distance ⁠from being able to produce an atom bomb than it is at now. The U.S. withdrawal in 2018 caused the deal to unravel, and Iran quickly expanded its atomic program.

Under that 2015 deal, Iran did not enrich beyond 3.67%.

Even at 90%, however, it takes ​more steps to produce the core of a bomb. When it is enriched, the uranium is in gas form. It ​must then be turned into ⁠metal for use in a weapon.

CAN YOU MOVE IT?

Yes. Iran moved enriched material between sites under IAEA monitoring before the June attacks.

Under the 2015 deal and a precursor to it, Iran’s stocks of uranium enriched to up to 20% were diluted or turned into reactor fuel plates and shipped out of the country.

Moving nuclear material like highly enriched uranium internationally is ⁠a sensitive but ​relatively routine procedure.

“It requires some precaution but it can be moved,” Grossi told PBS in March when ​asked about the 60% material.

WILL IRAN GIVE IT UP?

Iran’s supreme leader has issued a directive that the 60% material should not be sent abroad, two senior Iranian sources said last week.

Iranian sources say Tehran might agree ​to send half of it to a third country, receiving uranium enriched to 5% in return, and dilute the other half inside Iran, Reuters reported.