Middle East crisis live: Israel strikes targets in Lebanon as US-Iran talks in Switzerland called off

IDF claims continuing strikes come after Iran-backed group repeatedly violated ceasefire; JD Vance cancels trip as US-Iran talks set for Friday cancelled

• US-Iran talks in Switzerland abruptly called off

• JD Vance tells Iran deal critics in Israel: Trump is your only ally left in the world

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency has said at least 16 people have been killed in the Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon, which Israel’s military said were ongoing, while Hezbollah said there was intense fighting in the area.

The fighting poses a threat to the new US-Iran agreement on ending the war, which calls for an immediate halt of military operations “on all fronts, including in Lebanon”.

Vance lashed out at Israeli critics of the Iran deal, saying Donald Trump was Israel’s only ally left in the world, in a sharp rebuke that referenced the billions in defence aid ?the country receives from America. Trump “is the only head of state in the entire world ?who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this ?moment in time”, Vance told reporters.

Trump said on Thursday the ?US expected “a ?complete ceasefire on all fronts, including ?Lebanon, Hezbollah ?and Israel”, adding in a social media post: “We ?encourage everyone ?in the ?Middle East Region to maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations ?to beautifully unfold.”

Iran’s supreme leader said he approved the deal with the US despite having a “different view”, without elaborating. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in message read on state television: “In principle, I had a different view [about the memorandum of understanding], but I issued my permission due to the commitment that the honourable [Iranian] president, as the chairman of the Supreme National Security Council, gave me on behalf of himself and other members to protect the rights of the Iranian nation and the resistance front.”

In Khamenei’s message on Thursday – his first reaction to the Iran-US deal – he claimed Trump had “used all kinds of levers” to secure the deal “out of desperation”. The US president has claimed the agreement is a victory for Washington and averts a “worldwide depression”.