Live Updates: Vance participates in high-stakes talks with Iran as U.S. Navy ships cross the Strait of Hormuz

Pope Leo XIV on Saturday denounced the "delusion of omnipotence" that is fueling the U.S.-Israel war in Iran and demanded that political leaders stop and negotiate peace.

History's first U.S.-born pope didn't mention the United States or President Trump in his prayer, which was planned before ongoing talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, were announced. But Leo's tone and message appeared directed at Mr. Trump and U.S. officials, who have boasted of U.S. military superiority and justified the war in religious terms.

"It is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive," the pope said. "Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death."

Two U.S. Navy destroyers "conducted operations" in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, beginning efforts to clear mines from the waterway, according to U.S. Central Command. 

The two destroyers transited through the Strait and operated in the Arabian Gulf, CENTCOM said. 

"Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce," said Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM.

President Trump said earlier Saturday that operations to clear mines from the strait were beginning. CENTCOM said that "additional U.S. forces, including underwater drones, will join the clearance effort in the coming days."

Read more here.

President Trump said the Strait of Hormuz will reopen soon, as the U.S., Pakistan, and Iran held a trilateral face-to-face meeting in Islamabad.

"The Strait of Hormuz will soon be open, and the empty ships are rushing to the United States to 'load up,'" Mr. Trump wrote Saturday in a social media post, after lambasting the press for reporting what he called fake news about the war in Iran. He did not clarify what the empty ships were loading. 

Earlier on Saturday, Mr. Trump said the U.S. had been clearing out the strait as a favor to other countries. He did not specify what work was being done to clear the waterway. He said that countries including China, Japan, South Korea, France and Germany would benefit from the cleared strait. 

He added that the U.S. has destroyed Iran's military.

U.S., Pakistan and Iran are holding a trilateral face to face meeting today, a senior White House official told CBS News. 

Vance, Kushner and Witkoff met with the speaker of Iran's parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Iranian foreign affairs minister Abbas Araghchi, and at least one Pakistani official. 

In addition to Vance, Witkoff and Kushner, the U.S. delegation in Iran includes Dr. Andrew Baker, the Deputy National Security Advisor to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President, and Michael Vance, the Special Advisor to the Vice President for Asian Affairs.

The broader delegation also includes U.S. subject matter experts, both on the ground in Islamabad and supporting from Washington. 

The heads of multiple United Nations agencies demanded an end to impunity for widespread international law violations that they say have occurred in the Middle East. 

In a joint statement, the leaders said they were "alarmed by the sustained violations of the rules of war and international humanitarian law" in the region. The statement noted that "even wars have rules, and these rules must be respected." 

"In just the last month across the Middle East, thousands of civilians have been killed and injured. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, many multiple times," the statement read. The statement was written by U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, as well as the heads of the agencies for human rights, health, food, refugees, children and more. 

It noted that hospitals and schools have been struck, civilian infrastructure has been destroyed, and global supply chains have been strained. 

"We demand that all parties - whether Member States of the United Nations or armed groups - respect their legal obligation to protect civilians, including humanitarian personnel, and civilian infrastructure," the statement read. "All violations must be met with accountability." 

The Israel Defense Forces said that it has hit more than 200 targets in Lebanon in the past day.

The IDF claimed in a post on X that the targets were all part of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terror group. A video shared online shows a building exploding after being targeted from the air. Another clip shows a similar scene from a distance. The IDF did not clarify the circumstances of either video. 

The IDF said its air force "continues to strike infrastructure" related to Hezbollah. The military is also assisting with ground force operations in Southern Lebanon and striking launchers to "thwart fire toward the citizens of the State of Israel." 

The Israeli military targeted over 100 sites in 10 minutes on Wednesday in a similar wide-scale attack. Israel said all of the 200 people killed in those strikes were terrorists, while Lebanon's prime minister said civilians had been among the dead.

Three Iranian nationals were arrested by federal agents after Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated their lawful permanent resident status, the State Department said in a news release. 

The three were identified as Seyed Eissa Hashemi, Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son. Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, also known as "Screaming Mary," who was the spokesperson for the Islamist militants who stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, the State Department said. Ebtekar went on to hold other roles within the regime, the department said. 

Hashemi, Tahmasebi, and their son entered the U.S. in 2014, on visas issued by the Obama administration, the State Department said. They received lawful permanent resident status via the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program in 2016. The issuance of new visas under the program has been suspended by the Trump administration. 

Last week, the State Department terminated the legal status of the niece and grandniece of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed during President Trump's first term. The pair are now in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the department said. 

President Trump said on TruthSocial that the United States has begun "clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to Countries all over the world." 

Mr. Trump also repeated that Iran's navy and air force were "gone" and the country's anti-aircraft apparatus "is nonexistent." He said that the only threat Iran currently has is mines in the Strait of Hormuz," and said Iran's mine-dropping boats have been sunk. 

Mr. Trump did not specify what work was being done to clear the waterway. He said that countries including China, Japan, South Korea, France and Germany will benefit from the cleared strait. 

"Incredibly, they don't have the Courage or Will to do this work themselves," Mr. Trump wrote. "Very interestingly, however, empty Oil carrying ships from many Nations are all heading to the United States of America to LOAD UP with Oil." 

Simbal Khan, a senior technical expert at the Asia Foundation and a regional security analyst, said she is "still skeptical" that talks in Islamabad are "going to translate to a long-term peace." 

"I think it's the beginning of the end of this phase of war," Khan told CBS Saturday Morning.

The discussions in Islamabad have begun, two U.S. officials told CBS News. 

It's unclear what time the talks started or if they are direct. 

Vance's spokesperson declined to comment. 

Iranian state TV is reporting that diplomats in Islamabad have "red lines" including a ceasefire and war reparations. A U.S. official told CBS News that no agreements have been made.

Several rings of armed forces, roadblocks and police checkpoints have been set up in Islamabad to protect the luxury hotel where the U.S.-Iran peace talks are taking place, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab reported Saturday. 

"The stakes for Pakistan couldn't be higher as it hosts this event, which is on a scale rarely ever seen here before, and it's taking no chances," Tyab said on CBS Saturday Morning. 

Saudi finance minister Mohammed al-Jadaan was in Islamabad on Saturday in a show of "economic support," a source familiar told AFP, the latest sign of new alliances emerging in the Gulf.

Cash-strapped Pakistan recently said it would return more than $3 billion in loans to the UAE that Abu Dhabi had been rolling over since 2018. Islamabad is dependent on IMF bailouts and loans from friendly countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE to service its huge debt, which swallows up half of its annual revenues.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia were once close partners, but relations have soured in recent years as the neighbours found themselves at odds in Yemen, Sudan and the Horn of Africa.

Pakistan, along with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, has been engaged in efforts to find an off-ramp to the US-Israeli war on Iran, which has seen the Gulf bear the brunt of Tehran's retaliatory strikes. The UAE has sustained more Iranian attacks than any other country.

Civil defense crews used cranes on Saturday to search through partially collapsed apartments, three days after Israeli strikes hit a six-story building in Beirut's seaside neighborhood of Caracas. 

The Israeli military struck some 100 sites that it said were connected to Hezbollah in Lebanon's capital and other cities. Israel said the dead were terrorists, while Lebanese officials said the toll included civilians. 

Lebanese civil defense officials said six people were killed in the Caracas building and a missing teenager was believed to be buried under a collapsed roof. Najib Merhi, the owner of a snack shop on the bottom floor, said the strike came as a shock because "this is a touristic area, a safe area, an area that is shared between all the social fabric of this country."

Three hours after the U.S. delegation arrived at their negotiation site, talks with Iranian leaders have yet to begin, U.S. officials told CBS News. 

Vance arrived at the negotiation site at 12:06 p.m. local time, or 3:06 a.m. ET. 

The U.S. has not agreed to release any Iranian frozen assets, a senior U.S. official told CBS News, rebutting previous media reports. 

Vice President JD Vance held a bilateral meeting with Pakistani Prime Minster Shehbaz Sharif, but negotiations have not started yet and no agreements have been discussed.  

The American delegation includes Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The Pakistani delegation includes Mohsin Naqvi, the interior minister, and Ishaq Dar, the foreign minister and deputy prime minister. 

A Qatari official also denied these claims to CBS News on Friday. Qatar claims it still has $6 billion in Iranian assets intact, which the U.S. Treasury would have to permit be released. 

Islamabad — After more than 16 hours of travel, Vice President Vance arrived in Islamabad for peace talks with Iranian leaders on the fifth day of a temporary ceasefire in the war, now at the end of its sixth week.

Vance was greeted in at the airport by Pakistani officials Asim Munir, the field marshal of the Islamic Republic of Pakstan; Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar; and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, as well as the charge d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Natalie Baker, Witkoff and Kushner.

There was a brief red-carpet ceremony to welcome Vance at PAF Air Base Nur Khan, which was protected by heavy security. Billboards with a dove symbol and the flags of the U.S. and Pakistan were on the tarmac and on light posts along the motorcade route.

Air Force Two left the Washington, D.C., area at about 8:40 a.m. ET Friday morning and landed in Islamabad at 1:29 a.m. ET Saturday. The vice president's plane flew over several European and Eastern European countries, then traveled north of Iran en route to Pakistan, which is hosting the negotiations between its neighbor and the U.S.

During the flight, passengers watched live news coverage on Fox News of the Artemis II splashdown and crew retrieval while the vice president's plane crossed the Black Sea and later, the Caspian Sea.

Digital monitor Netblocks said in a social media post Friday that Iran's internet blackout has lasted more than 1,000 hours.

While Iran's domestic intranet remains operational — supporting local messaging apps, banking platforms and other services — access to the global internet has been severely restricted since early February.

Iranian negotiator and Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the delegation is arriving to the talks hopeful but cautious. 

"We have good intentions but we do not trust," Iranian state TV quoted Ghalibaf as saying upon his arrival in Pakistan's capital Islamabad. "Our experience in negotiating with the Americans has always been met with failure and broken promises."

Tehran has said the talks would only begin if Washington accepts its preconditions: a Lebanon ceasefire and the unfreezing of Iran's assets.

Israel is to hold discussions with Lebanon's government in Washington next week, but Israel's ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said his country will not discuss a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Israel "agreed to begin formal peace negotiations" with the Lebanese government, with which it has no diplomatic relations, Leiter said in a statement.

"Israel refused to discuss a ceasefire with the Hezbollah terrorist organization, which continues to attack Israel and is the main obstacle to peace between the two countries," he added.

—CBS/AFP

Lebanon's presidency said Friday that a meeting would be held with Israel in Washington, D.C., next week to discuss a ceasefire and the start of negotiations.

Lebanon has emerged as a flashpoint in President Trump's effort to end the Iran war, with the U.S. and Israel publicly disagreeing with Iran and Pakistan over whether the country to Israel's north is included in the two-week ceasefire announced earlier this week.

Shortly after Israel and the U.S. began the war with Iran, Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in a show of solidarity with Tehran. Israel then launched a new offensive against Hezbollah, and invaded much of southern Lebanon. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly expressed readiness for direct talks with Israel since Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the war. 

CBS News previously reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio's office is planning the three-way talks, which will be led by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, along with Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad and Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, according to two sources familiar with the matter and one Lebanese official. The sources described this as a discussion about how to launch direct talks.

A statement from Aoun's office said a first telephone call was held on Friday between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to Washington, and the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon.

"During the call, it was agreed to hold the first meeting next Tuesday at the State Department to discuss declaring a ceasefire and the start date for negotiations between Lebanon and Israel under US auspices," the presidency statement said.

A State Department official had previously confirmed to CBS News that representatives from the two sides will meet at the department next week.

—CBS/AFP

A high-powered Iranian delegation led by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, has arrived in Islamabad to participate in peace talks.

An Iowa farmer told CBS News the cost of filling up has more than doubled since the end of last year.

Joe Dierickx told CBS News' Lana Zak the price of farm diesel, which is its own category of fuel, has risen from $1.89 a gallon in December to $4.17.

"When I started in the '80s, that was probably the ultimate challenge of profitability, and it's kind of slipping back in to that," Dierickx told Zak. "We're not to the '80s style of unprofitability yet, but we're getting close. We're knocking on the door."

Dierickx has a 10,000-gallon tank for his tractors. Filling the tank went from around $18,000 to about $41,000.

Watch more from the interview here.

The Israeli military said Friday that airstrikes it carried out in Lebanon two days earlier killed more than 180 Hezbollah militants.

"Following an initial intelligence assessment ... it can be determined that the IDF eliminated more than 180 militants from the Hezbollah terrorist organization. The count is still ongoing," the military said.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's health ministry said Friday that the death toll from Israeli strikes across the country two days earlier was 357, up from a previous count of 303, while it said 1,223 more people were wounded.

Pope Leo XIV amplified his condemnation of the war with Iran on Friday, saying that "God does not bless any conflict" and certainly doesn't side with those who drop bombs.

Leo spoke during a gathering of top bishops of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, an Eastern Rite Catholic church whose clerics are in Rome to elect a new patriarch.

Leo said they were signs of hope "in a world marked by senseless and inhuman violence," especially in the lands of early Christianity that have been "desecrated by the blasphemy of war and the brutality of business, with no regard for people's lives."

He told them that no cause can justify the spilling of innocent blood, and he urged them "to proclaim clearly that God does not bless any conflict; to cry out to the world that whoever is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, never stands on the side of those who yesterday wielded the sword and today drop bombs."

President Trump continued to criticize the Iranian regime on Truth Social as Vice President JD Vance was heading to Pakistan to lead U.S. negotiations with Iran.

"The Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways," the president wrote on Truth Social, referring to the Strait of Hormuz. "The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!"

Mr. Trump has continued to threaten to use military force if Iran doesn't reach a peace agreement. He told the New York Post that U.S. Navy ships will be restocked with ammunition in case the talks don't go well. 

The president also posted that the Iranians are better at public relations "than they are at fighting."

Stocks wavered on Wall Street and oil prices held steady amid the shaky ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran.

The S&P 500 fell 0.1% in afternoon trading Friday, but is still heading for a second consecutive winning week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 289 points, or 0.6%, as of 1:13 p.m. Eastern. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%.

Major indexes have been gaining ground over the last two weeks amid optimism that the war with Iran could be heading toward a resolution. The S&P 500 has erased most of its losses from March and is just 2.3% short of its all-time high set in January. The market is still prone to big swings on developments around the war.

Brent crude oil, the international standard, has gone from roughly $70 per barrel before the war in late February to more than $119 at times. Brent rose 1.1% to $96.98 Friday.

CBS/AP

Former Vice President Kamala Harris called the Iran conflict a "war of choice" while speaking at an event in New York on Friday.

Harris, who was the Democratic nominee for president in the 2024 election, told the Rev. Al Sharpton at the National Action Network's convention in Manhattan that she was "unequivocally opposed" to the war.

"So he enters into this war, a war of choice," Harris said. "Remember, the man said, the man said he got rid of their nuclear arsenal. Obliterated it, he said. You know how he likes to use those kind of words. Obliterated it, which is not an ambiguous term. That means you took it out. Well, evidently he didn't do that."

With Vice President JD Vance en route to Islamabad for peace talks with Iran, President Trump told the New York Post on Friday morning that U.S. warships are being reloaded with "the best ammunition" to continue strikes if negotiations fail.

"We have a reset going," the president told the outlet. "We're loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made — even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart."

"We're loading up the ships with the best weapons ever made, even at a higher level than we use to do a complete decimation," he added. "And if we don't have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively."

Asked if he thinks the talks will succeed, the president responded, "We're going to find out in about 24 hours. We're going to know soon."

Reports that Iran is planning to charge ships a toll to traverse the Strait of Hormuz are raising concerns about the potential economic impact on oil and fuel prices.

For now, Iran has not officially implemented a toll for the strait, which would be unprecedented. But Tehran indicated this week that, under a long-term peace deal to reopen the strait, it would charge vessels a fee to guarantee safe passage, Reuters reported.

Analysts with investment adviser Capital Economics said in a report that an Iranian toll on ship traffic would give the country "de facto control over a critical artery for energy trade and introduce a new source of geopolitical risk to the world economy."

Read more here.

Iran's Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Friday that two conditions must be met for negotiations to proceed in Islamabad.

"Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the parties have yet to be implemented: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran's blocked assets prior to the commencement of negotiations," Ghalibaf said in a social media post. "These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin."

Posting to Truth Social on Friday morning, President Trump praised Palantir Technologies' warfighting capabilities, suggesting the company's technology was involved in the war with Iran. 

"Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has proven to have great war fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies!!!" he wrote.  

The president didn't specify which warfighting equipment he was praising. Last month, Iran threatened to target a number of U.S. tech companies, including Miami-based Palantir.

French energy giant TotalEnergies said Friday that it had shut down a major refinery on the eastern Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia after it was damaged during the war.

The Saudi energy ministry had announced Thursday "multiple attacks" recently on its oil and gas sites, including the SATORP refinery, a joint venture of TotalEnergies and the Saudi state-owned Aramco group.

No details on production impacts, nor the type of attack, were disclosed.

TotalEnergies cited only "incidents that occurred during the night of April 7 to 8, causing damage to one of the refinery's two processing trains."

No casualties were reported, and Total said both units were shut down as a precaution while assessing the damage.

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House's National Economic Council, said futures markets were anticipating a "rapid reduction" in energy prices once the Strait of Hormuz operates normally. Right now, the strait is only operating at about 10% of normal pace, he said. 

"There are boats going through right now, but at about 10% of the normal pace," he told Fox Business on Friday morning.

The White House is trying to assuage markets and consumers after the Consumer Price Index report released Friday found that inflation soared last month. 

"As the administration ensures the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, the American economy remains on a solid trajectory thanks to the Administration's robust supply-side agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance," White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai wrote on social media Friday.

Police checkpoints, roadblocks and a heavy military presence have created a several-mile-wide security ring around the luxury hotel where top U.S. and Iranian officials are expected to meet on Saturday.

Few in Islamabad can remember a time when the Pakistani capital has been at the center of such high-stakes diplomacy.

And Pakistan is leaning into that moment, trying to show it can mediate negotiations of real global consequence, with digital billboards across the city branding these negotiations as "The Islamabad Talks."

A global energy shock triggered by the Iran war sent U.S. inflation soaring in March, with the Consumer Price Index rising at a 3.3% annual rate.

Economists had predicted inflation would jump nearly an entire percentage point from 2.4% in February to 3.3% in March on an annual basis, according to the average of six separate forecasts reviewed by CBS News. The CPI, a basket of goods and services typically bought by consumers, tracks changes in prices over time.

Inflation ran hot in March as a result of higher energy costs tied to the Iran war, which has constrained the flow of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global oil supply.

Read more here.

Vice President JD Vance left Friday morning for Iran talks in Islamabad. The vice president said President Trump gave his negotiating team "some pretty clear guidelines" heading into the talks.

"We're looking forward to the negotiation," Vance told reporters before leaving Washington. "I think it's going to be positive. We'll of course see, as the president of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith. We're certainly willing to extend the open hand."

"If they're going to try to play us, then they're going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive," he added. "So, we're going to try to have a positive negotiation."

The vice president said he'll take questions later in the trip.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave an update on his view of the ceasefire and the effects of the war in Iran in a wide-ranging interview with U.K. broadcaster ITN. Starmer was speaking from Bahrain during a trip to visit Gulf allies where he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

On the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as part of the ceasefire agreement, Starmer said, "There will be an element of wait and see. So some of the discussions in the last couple of days have been: Let's see what happens in two, three, four days. That'll begin to be the test. So it's not what people say on Day One or Day Two."

One lesson Starmer said his government had learned from the conflict in Iran is that the U.K. has to have energy independence.

"I'm fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy, businesses' bills go up and down on energy, because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world," he said.

Starmer was asked about language used by President Trump that many found shocking, including his threat that a "whole civilization will die."

"I would never use those words, language like that, myself," Starmer said.

South Korea said the country's Foreign Minister Cho Hyun spoke over the phone with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi on Thursday and emphasized "the need for the prompt and safe resumption of free navigation for all vessels, including Korean ships, in the Strait of Hormuz, taking the ceasefire as a momentum."

Cho said South Korea would send a special envoy to Iran to further discuss the situation in the Middle East.

South Korea routes around 70% of its crude oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

As of April 2, 26 South Korean vessels remained stranded in the Persian Gulf, and South Korea is suffering some of the worst effects of the Iran conflict to its energy sector and economy of any non-combatant country, the CSIS said.

Only about a dozen ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz in the first two days of the ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran, far below the normal traffic level before the war, marine transit data shows.

As part of the agreement, which President Trump announced late Tuesday, Iran would allow vessels to cross through the channel, which is a crucial waterway for shipping about 20% of the world's oil supply. 

On Wednesday and Thursday, at least 12 ships passed through the waterway, data from ship tracking company, Marine Traffic, shows. But that's just a fraction of the 129 vessels that transited the strait on an average day from Feb. 1 to Feb. 27, according to data from the U.N.'s Trade and Development organization.

Only three of the ships that passed through since the ceasefire began were oil or chemical tankers, all passing on Thursday. All three are under U.S. sanctions for previously shipping Iranian oil. The rest were cargo ships. 

Read more here.

Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement Friday that Iran has "absolutely not carried out any launches toward any country during the ceasefire hours up to this moment."

"In recent hours," the statement continued, "various news agencies have published reports about drone and missile attacks on facilities in some countries along the southern shores of the Persian Gulf."

The IRGC asserted that "if these reports published by the media are true, they are undoubtedly the work of the Zionist enemy (Israel) or the United States."

The corps said if Iran does strike any targets, it would "openly and courageously announce it in an official statement. Any action not included in official statements of the Islamic Republic of Iran is unrelated to us."

Kuwait accused Iran and its proxies of launching drone attacks targeting it on Thursday despite the ceasefire, as Saudi Arabia said recent attacks damaged a key pipeline in the kingdom. The accusation from Kuwait's Foreign Ministry put new pressure on the ceasefire ahead of planned talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Saudi Arabia's state-run Saudi Press Agency, quoting an anonymous official, said its crucial East-West pipeline, which carries oil out to the Red Sea and avoids the Strait of Hormuz, was damaged in the recent attacks.

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard denied launching attacks on Persian Gulf states after Kuwait's announcement.

Such an assault would mirror the continuing pressure campaign Tehran is waging on the U.S. and its allies, particularly amid efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Early Friday, Iran denied launching any strikes at all since the truce began.

-CBS/AP

Hezbollah says it has carried out a total of 19 strikes on Israeli targets so far on Friday.

The group said it launched 72 strikes on Israel on Thursday, claiming it targeted military positions, settlements and border areas as deep as 20 miles inside Israel

The chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Eyal Zamir, toured southern Lebanon Thursday and approved plans for the continuation of Israeli operations there, according to an IDF statement.

"The IDF is at war. We continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organization with great intensity," Zamir said.

"The primary arena of our fighting is here in Lebanon. We continue to deepen the ground operations and continue to strike Hezbollah. This is a very powerful operation; our troops are operating along the front lines and at depth."

Zamir said the assault by Israel and the U.S. against Iran had "cut off" Hezbollah "from its strategic artery in Iran."

"The Lebanese government understands more than ever the magnitude of the problem posed by the presence of a radical, fanatical terrorist organization on its soil," Zamir said.

He said the IDF's mission "is clear — to "continue deepening the damage and to continue weakening Hezbollah."

Read more about how Lebanon became a flashpoint in the war here.

Ukrainian military personnel shot down Iranian-designed Shahed drones in multiple Middle Eastern countries during the Iran war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, describing the operations as part of a broader effort to help partners counter the same weapons used by Russia in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy made his first public acknowledgment of the operations Wednesday in remarks to reporters that were embargoed until Friday. He said Ukrainian forces took part in active operations abroad using domestically produced interceptor drones proven in countering Iranian-designed Shahed drones used by Russia in Ukraine.

"This was not about a training mission or exercises, but about support in building a modern air defense system that can actually work," Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine took part in the defensive operations before the tentative ceasefire in the Middle East was reached among Iran, the United States and Israel this week.

Zelenskyy didn't identify the countries involved but said Ukrainian personnel operated across several nations, helping strengthen their air defense systems. He previously said that 228 Ukrainian experts were deployed in the region.

In exchange, Ukraine is receiving weapons to protect its energy infrastructure, along with oil, diesel fuel and, in some cases, financial arrangements, he said.

Zelenskyy said the agreements would bolster Ukraine's energy stability and described the partnerships as something that would "be marketed" as Kyiv seeks to formalize and expand its defense export role.

"We are helping strengthen their security in exchange for contributions to our country's resilience," he said. "This is far more than simply receiving money."

The foreign ministers of Pakistan and France held a phone call Friday morning in which they discussed the "continued efforts toward a diplomatic pathway for lasting peace and stability in the region," according to a Pakistani readout of the call.

Both French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot and Pakistani Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, who is also the country's deputy prime minister, "expressed concern over serious ceasefire violations made in Lebanon and underscored the importance of full implementation and respect for the ceasefire," Pakistan's foreign ministry said.