Israel and Lebanon agree to ceasefire, US announces

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to implement a ceasefire to end hostilities, the Trump administration has announced, as the US looks to overcome one of the largest barriers to reaching a broader deal to end the war with Iran.

The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is contingent on a complete cessation of fire from the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia and the evacuation of all its operatives from the country’s south, a joint statement released by the US state department said after negotiations in Washington.

The two sides, which do not have formal diplomatic relations, also agreed to create “pilot zones” in which the Lebanese armed forces “will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors”.

A Hezbollah official told the AFP news agency that the group would “not accept a partial ceasefire”, and the group has not been party to the talks.

A truce to halt the fighting in Lebanon was meant to take hold on 17 April, but hostilities continued, with both sides justifying their ongoing attacks by the other’s alleged violations.

The meetings in Washington were the fourth round of direct talks by Lebanese and Israeli diplomats since fighting erupted on 2 March, when Hezbollah renewed attacks against Israel in support of Iran.

The new development came after continued cross-border attacks earlier in the day, with Hezbollah saying it targeted Israeli troops, and Israeli strikes killing at least nine people in southern Lebanon.

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In pictures

This photograph, entitled A Woman Eats in the Canteen of the Soviet-era Sanatorium by Jo Kearney, has won the World Food Photography award. An exhibition of the top images offers insights into the lives of people around the world through the lens of food, from growing, farming and harvesting to cooking, eating, celebrating and surviving.

What they said …

“That was my first film, he was my first director and he didn’t protect me. Even though I didn’t know much aged 13, I knew that that was not OK.” – Nastassja Kinski.

The German director Wim Wenders has withdrawn his 1975 film Wrong Move from circulation because of a scene featuring actor Nastassja Kinski topless. She was 13 at the time of filming, and has spent 15 years trying to get Wenders to alter the film to remove the scene.

The director said in a statement released on Wednesday: “Streaming, TV and distribution partners have been instructed to no longer make the film publicly accessible.”

Podcast

Decoding America: Trump is throwing a party for himself. Will Americans RSVP?

Co-hosts Reged Ahmad and Jonathan Yerushalmy ask where it all went wrong for the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations as artists pull out of a scheduled concert series and celebrations. Also, they talk about the California governor primary race, why it matters and which candidate has a character based on him in Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It.

Listen to the episode here

Before bed read

For a year, the journalist Joanna Stern decided to turn herself into a “lab rat”, inviting artificial intelligence into “every corner” of her life.

She let AI answer her texts, decide what she ate and cooked, mow her lawn, fold her washing, drive her places, parse her mammograms and even, in the darkness of a burner phone, be her lover.

Daily word game

Today’s starter word is: TEER. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.

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