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Agencies

Air raid sirens sounded in Israel on Sunday as its military worked to intercept barrages of incoming Iranian missiles for the first time since an April ceasefire took hold in the Middle East war.
The Israeli army reported the attack just hours after Tehran had threatened to retaliate for a new Israeli strike on Beirut, Lebanon.
⁠Iran’s ⁠Revolutionary Guards said their attacks were ⁠a “warning” of a broader ‌response that would ‌encompass all ⁠US ⁠and ‌Israeli targets in the ‌region ‌if “aggressions” ‌are repeated.
A senior Iranian source said Iran will respond to any Israeli attack with greater force, Reuters reported.
The Israeli army said had Iran “committed a grave mistake”, according to Agence France-Presse.
Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, US President Donald Trump said the US military was on alert but also that a peace deal was close, Reuters reported.
“We are very close to a final deal with Iran, I don’t want it to blow up because of what is happening now,” Trump told Axios news service.
“What I would suggest to Iran: You’ve shot your missiles, that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal,” Trump said, according to the US broadcaster Fox News.
Iran closed its airspace over the west of the country after launching the salvo of missiles towards Israel. Iraq and Syria also closed their airspace as a precaution.
An April 8 ceasefire had halted major hostilities between Iran, Israel and the US but efforts to turn the truce into a settlement have repeatedly stalled and Sunday’s launches were sure to further dampen hopes for a lasting peace, as the war reached its 100th day.
Tehran has insisted any deal to permanently end the war must also halt the parallel conflict in Lebanon, where Israel is pursuing a campaign against the Iran-backed movement Hezbollah, and had warned that any new attacks on Beirut would trigger a “full-scale resumption” of hostilities.
Lebanon’s state-run national news agency said two people were killed and 11 wounded in Sunday’s strike.

Before Sunday’s strike, Iran’s powerful parliamentary speaker had hinted at retaliation. “The (US) naval blockade imposed against the Iranian people, together with Washington’s green light today to the Zionist regime, makes US and Israeli bases and assets in the region legitimate targets. Our armed forces, as always, are free to act,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said on social media.
A senior US official said “we were not surprised” by the attack in Beirut. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, would not say if the US had been given a heads-up on the strike.
The Beirut strike hit a residential building, damaging four of its seven floors. An unexploded weapon was found in the rubble.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that strike was in retaliation for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group firing at northern Israel earlier and that Israel targeted “command centres” in the sprawling urban neighbourhoods.
Israel on Monday had said it would strike the southern suburbs after Hezbollah claimed attacks in northern Israel but urgent talks via Washington halted the attacks on the condition that Hezbollah stop targeting Israeli border towns. Lebanon and Israel later renewed a ceasefire agreement in talks that Beirut hoped would end the fighting.
The first such agreement took effect on April 17, days after a 10-minute Israeli bombardment of Beirut killed more than 300 people. Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs twice following that deal. Israeli strikes over southern Lebanon continue daily and Israeli forces have seized around a fifth of Lebanon in a ground invasion.
Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until he believes Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.
Hezbollah has scathingly rejected the US-brokered deal and urged Lebanon to end its direct talks with Israel. Instead, it backs Iran’s inclusion of a ceasefire in Lebanon as a condition in negotiations with the US.
The fighting threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas and related products like fertiliser. Its closure has jolted the world economy and spiked warnings of hunger in vulnerable regions.

Trump, in an interview taped on Friday and broadcast on Sunday with NBC’s Meet the Press, said: “I’d like to see Lebanon have a better life. I’d like to see a more surgical attack on Hezbollah. I think it should be more surgical.”
Trump added that he is “not demanding” that Lebanon be part of the short-term deal to extend the ceasefire in the Iran war.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since the war began March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel, two days after Israel and the US began attacking Iran. More than 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced. The fighting has killed at least 31 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.
Lebanon’s army commander, General Rodolphe Haikal, went to Pakistan on Saturday at the invitation of Pakistan’s army chief, who has been involved in mediating talks between the US and Iran. The Lebanese army did not say whether the visit is related to those mediation efforts.
Pakistan’s interior minister was in Tehran on Sunday in a fresh bid to restart negotiations between Iran and the US.

Mohsin Naqvi was delivering a message to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei from Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. There were no details on the message’s contents.
Khamenei has not been seen in public since he was named the Islamic Republic’s ruler after his father was killed on February 28, the first day of the war.
Naqvi met Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni late on Saturday and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday, according to official Iranian media.
Pakistani authorities have said Islamabad, with support from regional countries including Qatar, Turkey and Egypt, is working to help bridge differences between the United States and Iran.
In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Bader Abdelatty and Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani discussed “proposed elements” of a potential agreement between the US and Iran, the Egyptian foreign ministry said, without details.
Reporting by Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Reuters, dpa


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A projectile streaks through the sky over central Israel during an Iranian missile attack on Sunday. Photo: AP

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Lebanese intelligence officers look at an unexploded missile, centre, at the site where an Israeli air strike hit a building in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburb, Lebanon on Sunday. Photo: AP

An injured man receives medical help in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday. Photo: Reuters

Iranians walk past a huge billboard featuring previous supreme leaders Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on a street in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Chief of Defence Forces of Pakistan, Field Marshal Asim Munir (centre-left) is welcomed by Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni (centre-right) upon his arrival in Tehran as a part of the ongoing mediation efforts between the US and Iran, on May 22. Photo: Reuters

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An Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Monday. Photo: AFP

Traffic clogs a road as residents flee the southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday. Photo: Reuters

In the latest advance, Israeli troops on Saturday seized the 900-year-old  Beaufort Castle and a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF via Reuters

An Israeli military convoy in southern Lebanon. Photo: Reuters

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An anti-US mural in Tehran, Iran. Photo: West Asia News Agency via Reuters

Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Photo ICANA News Agency via AFP

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US President Donald Trump speaks on the phone inside his limousine on Monday. Photo: EPA

Vessels anchored at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman. Photo: Reuters

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The Israeli army reported the attack just hours after Tehran had threatened to retaliate for a new Israeli strike on Beirut, Lebanon


The Israeli army reported the attack just hours after Tehran had threatened to retaliate for a new Israeli strike on Beirut, Lebanon.


Israel reports incoming Iranian missiles in first since fragile ceasefire

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Israeli army reported the attack just hours after Tehran had threatened to retaliate for a new Israeli strike on Beirut, Lebanon

The Israeli army reported the attack just hours after Tehran had threatened to retaliate for a new Israeli strike on Beirut, Lebanon