AGENCIES

Relief over a truce between the United States and Iran gave way yesterday to alarm as fighting continued across the region, with Israel launching its biggest attacks yet on Lebanon and Iran striking Gulf neighbours’ oil facilities.

World financial markets rose after President Donald Trump announced the agreement late on Tuesday, two hours before a deadline he had set for Iran to open the blockaded Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of its “whole civilisation”.

Uncertainty over the truce also deepened amid conflicting accounts from both sides over what was agreed.

Iran and Pakistan both asserted that the ceasefire included Lebanon. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, disagreed, and Israeli forces unleashed their heaviest attack of the war so far on more than 100 targets, killing at least 254 people.

Trump also said that the temporary ceasefire deal between Washington and Tehran does not cover the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency cited an unnamed source warning that Iran will withdraw from the ceasefire if attacks on Lebanon continue.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu said that Israel remains prepared to confront Iran if necessary, despite the truce.

“Let me be clear: We still have objectives to complete, and we will achieve them -- either through agreement or through renewed fighting,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement.

“We are prepared to return to combat at any moment required. Our finger remains on the trigger. This is not the end of the campaign, but a step along the way to achieving all our objectives.”

Netanyahu also listed the war’s achievements.

“We destroyed not only existing missiles, but also the factories that

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